Loop on a Thread
by Incendiarist
Summary: In the aftermath of the Second War in Heaven, there's surprisingly little aftermath, but Gallifrey is still dying and nothing can be done to stop that. Clearly, the logical course of action is to take a road trip. [Last Great Time War era. Canon compliant. WIP.]
1. Chapter 1

Go read _Those Who Walk in Shadows_ (s/9008048/1/) and then come back, loves.

Updates every other Monday. Trigger warnings as they come. Co-written with Shrrgnien.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Timefall**

* * *

Chandvoroghantreludar was doing a thing. This was not perhaps the most specific set of parameters but it was something around 0400 and not even a Gallifreyan mind could work at its best when it was meant to be _sleeping_ and instead was stumbling around, sensually feeling up the wall to find the light-switch. It ought to have come to his hand like a cat wanting to be petted, but he'd offended the walls a few days ago and they were being difficult. He struggled for a few moments before finding the switch and hitting it with a great deal of irritation.

Chandvoroghantreludar stifled the urge to shriek as the lights flared. They really ought to program them so that they _eased_ on, he thought, rather than going straight to _All Hail Rassilon_ mode.

Patroklos growled something under his breath and rolled over, stealing Chandvoroghantreludar's pillow (again) and most of the blankets (as usual) as he attempted to burrow into the mattress.

_Knock knock knock knock._

"It's your _cousin_," Chandvoroghantreludar said distastefully, stifling a yawn and attempting to locate the door through the blinding whiteness.

Patroklos groaned. "It's too early in the morning to talk to psychopathic maniacs, tell them to piss off."

"No, I meant Culsu."

"That's what I _said_."

_Knock knock knock knock. Knock knock knock knock. Knockknockknockknock._

Patroklos threw a slipper at the door, managing to knock over a lamp and failing to accomplish anything useful.

"I don't think she's going to go away," said Chandvoroghantreludar. The frantic knocking continued as he squinted across the really ridiculously bright kitchen. "You should probably put on some pants."

_Knockknockknockknock. Knockknockknockknock._

"I'm _coming!_" he shouted.

_KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK—_

Chandvoroghantreludar finally managed to make his way to the door and open it.

"_Holy-"_

Just before he was buried under the mountain of anxiously hovering hypercubes, Chandvoroghantreludar managed to demonstrate a variety of curses that made Patroklos proud.

Or would have, if he hadn't fallen asleep again.

* * *

"You _slept through it?!" _shrieked Culsu, looking over her shoulder frantically at the pull-out sofa where she'd stationed her wife and daughter the second she'd noticed the timeline fracture. She was developing a cramp in her neck from glancing over at them every few moments, reassuring herself that they were still there. "How can you _sleep through the_ _end of the world?" _

"Practice?" replied Patroklos.

"Final exams aren't _actually_ the end of the world, Patroklos," said Culsu harshly.

"Says you? I'm impressed, Cthulhu. Marriage has really mellowed you."

"Culsu," Lotivver interrupted. "Will you _please_ tell me what's going on?"

Culsu looked over. Lotivver was used to being around Time Lords and had developed an almost supernatural patience for dealing with situations that were wildly above her understanding. Still, she had her limits; she was a pale shade of pea-soup green, tense and afraid but trying to hide it.

"Not all of us are timesensitive," the Vinvocci reminded her acidly, and Culsu cringed inwardly; she'd forgotten, again, that her wife wouldn't instinctively understand what was happening. Taking a deep breath, Lotivver continued in a more measured tone, "You're scaring her, Culsu." She pulled Loki closer against her side, running her fingers through their daughter's hair.

"No," said Culsu, "_this_ is scaring her. She can sense it."

"Sense _what?_" Lotivver pleaded. Through the barely-contained storm of fear and frustration, Culsu felt her open up a carefully controlled mental link to Loki, projecting as much calm as she could.

"The end."

"Of what? The end of _what?"_

"The end of everything."

"Wow," Patroklos commented. "Loving wife and mother."

"_Culsu!"_ Lotivver hissed.

"Shut up," Culsu growled. "Not you!" she added hastily, as Lotivver looked ready to impale her with her forehead. "Just... please," she said, turning the cube away as if that would do anything. "I'll explain everything," she promised desperately. "Once I know what's going on. _Please,_ Lotivver."

She wasn't sure whether it was the plea or if she was inadvertently projecting her fear, but—thank Rassilon—Lotivver listened.

"Loki needs to sleep, if she can," the Vonvocci said quietly. "Unless the world is ending right this second I'm going to put her back to bed, and then you're going to tell me what the _hell_ is going on. Don't curse, it's a bad habit," she added reflexively to her daughter, who was in no state to be listening anyway.

Culsu nodded vaguely, which Lotivver presumably took to mean "no, the world isn't going to end right now", because she gave her one last, lingering look before wrapping Loki in a blanket and carefully bundling the little girl up into her arms.

"Come on, sweetheart," Lotivver said softly. "You're safe. Let's get you back in bed..."

Culsu turned her attention back to the cube. "You have to feel it," she insisted, "it fractured! It must have been a massive paradox, big enough that the _entire timeline_ was orphaned to maintain the sanctity of the universe!"

She heard Patroklos stifle a yawn. "Well, go big or go home. Whatever it was, just be glad it wasn't any smaller or the universe might have been able to handle being a little less sanctified. Have I mentioned it's 0400?"

"Have I mentioned the Faction Paradox appears to have been erased from reality? Have I mentioned that there are eight less planets in the Home Constellation than there were yesterday?"

"Yeah," Patroklos yawned. "And it's five spans ago. And _0400_."

Culsu paled. "Five spans ago? By Inner Time?"

"Yeah...? Hey, how's the kid? The shift must've been rough for her, she's just a little thing."

"She's confused."

"No kidding." Culsu jumped as she felt a tentative hand brush against her side before settling around her waist. Lotivver—always so very careful of her spikes—rested her forehead in Culsu's hair with a tired sigh, and Culsu reached out and brushed her mind gently. She couldn't quite muster 'reassuring', but she managed a wordless _I'm here._

* * *

"So the world ended," Lotivver said.

Culsu sighed and handed her a mug of hot, vibrant purple Vinvocci tea. "Yes."

"And then it came back because destroying it created a paradox so big it erased itself from reality."

"...sort of." Culsu had to restrain herself from explaining it technically._ Correctly_. "No," she wanted to say, "it's nothing like that at all." But Lotivver was already rather put-upon, so instead she forced a smile on her face.

It came out as more of a grimace, really.

Lotivver's lips twitched tiredly. "When I've actually had sleep," she said, "You can explain it to me again. So we've gone back in Time?" She wondered ruefully when the capital T had started dropping itself in. Such were the side effects of living with an Oakdown.

"No," said Culsu, "that's not how Time works."

Lotivver gave her a Look, as well as a quick mental image of bright purple tea being poured over Culsu's head.

"We've been... temporally reallocated. To a parallel universe. The most stable universe."

Lotivver looked at her again. "And... that's a good place to be, yes? We want to be in the parallel universe because this one didn't explode?"

"No. It's a linked universe; they act in tandem. We've only been placed in an earlier chronological portion of Gallifrey's worldline so that the paradox that caused the orphaned universe to become unstable doesn't happen."

Lotivver leaned forward. She was exhausted and she had never understood Gallifreyan tenses and paradoxes gave her a headache, but she had never been _stupid_ and something in Culsu curled up in despair at the faint suspicion and beginnings of understanding in her eyes.

"That sounds like it should be a good thing," Lotivver said carefully. "So why are you still panicking?"

"The destruction of Gallifrey isn't the paradox."

"So... what is?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out, Lotivver!" she exclaimed. "I don't know! Nobody knows!" Lotivver reached out instinctively to hush her, glancing over her shoulder at Loki's bedroom door, and Culsu tried to keep her voice down as she continued. "The paradox—whatever it was—was involved in the destruction of the Nine Gallifreys—"

Lotivver mouthed _Nine?_

"—to the extent that unravelling the paradox negated Gallifrey's destruction."

Lotivver stared at her with the unconscious 'struggling-to-make-sense-of-Time-Lords' half-frown Culsu had fallen for at the Academy. She gave her a minute.

"Well," Lotivver finally said. "Negating the destruction of Gallifrey sounds like a good thing."

"It is," Culsu told her, staring into her mug in favor of meeting Lotivver's eyes. It wasn't a _lie_, exactly. She was alive, Lotivver was alive, Loki was alive. That was always a good thing.

Lotivver wasn't fooled by the deflection. "But?"

Culsu forced herself to look up. "But it's going to happen again." She took a deep breath. "In three years' time, Gallifrey will be destroyed in an echo of the worldline it parallels. And there's nothing anyone can do to change that, not without destroying the Universe itself."

Lotivver nodded slowly. "And... destroying the Universe is still bad, right?"

"Right."

"So we should start thinking about moving, then."

Culsu looked unbearably sad. "You don't understand," she said. "I was hoping you would. So I wouldn't have to explain it."

Lotivver just _looked_ at her for a few moments, before carefully setting her mug down on that stupid tiny end table and leaning in. "Explain what, Culsu?" she asked quietly.

"It's not just Gallifrey that's destroyed. It's everything _of _Gallifrey, retroactively. Everything... connected. When Gallifrey dies, so does the Matrix. It will never have existed in the first place. _Everything_, Lotivver." She couldn't bring herself to spell out exactly what that meant.

Lotivver was silent for several long heartbeats.

"Five spans?" she said finally.

"You could survive it," said Culsu, her voice shaking. "You're not Gallifreyan, it wouldn't take you. You could have a normal life after this. You could be happy."

Lotivver gave her wife a reproachful look before standing and taking away her tea. "It's still early," she said. "We can try to get a bit of sleep, at least. You look worse off than me, Culsu. Try to get some rest, I'll be there in a microspan."

There were no words in _any_ language for how badly Culsu did not want to let Lotivver out of her sight, but this was no time to get possessive. (A part of her whispered irritably that this was the _perfect_ time to get possessive, but she ignored it.) It was only to be expected that Lotivver would need a few moments to adjust to the news.

_Five spans._ It might as well have been days. Nearly a hectospan trying to maintain a relationship from opposite ends of the universe, a fraction of that building some semblance of a stable life together, and now...

_Loki's only four spans old..._

A gentle knock made her turn around. Loki, frightened and with tearstained eyes, peered around the door. Lotivver nudged the girl into the room, smiling at her shyness and scooping her into her arms.

"She couldn't sleep," Lotivver said, closing the door with her foot and rolling their daughter carefully into the middle of the bed. "I thought it might help to be together." Her voice cracked, and Culsu sincerely doubted she was just talking about Loki anymore.

"It's scary," Loki whispered. "Makes me feel weird. Sickish."

"It doesn't feel right," Culsu agreed. "I don't like it either. I'm just bigger, so it doesn't affect me as strongly. But we're safe," she said. Lotivver met her look over Loki's head. "We're all safe together, we're going to be all right."

"Tired," Loki sniffled.

Culsu's hearts broke. "I know," she said. "I know. Come here." Loki leaped at her, flinging her arms around her neck and crying. Culsu yelped and bit her tongue as Loki buried her face in her mother's chest; for all that Loki was flesh and bone a Gallifreyan she was still half Vinvocci and, unlike Lotivver, was still getting used to the really quite painful trio of forehead spikes she'd inherited from the pointy side of the family. Lotivver's lips twitched and she stared very hard at the wall with a patented No I'm Not Laughing Why On Gallifrey Would You Think That expression on her face.

Culsu resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at her, on the grounds that she was a grown woman with a wife and child and successful career, and not a six-span-old.

* * *

"Lotivver?"

Lotivver stirred slightly. "Mmrm?"

"I love you."

Lotivver gave a sleepy smile. There were no words for _I love you_ in Gallifreyan, so Culsu had learned them in Vinvocci, despite her spans of griping over the imprecise nature of Lotivver's mother tongue. Somehow it made the words sound all the sweeter.

She squeezed her wife's fingers where they intertwined loosely with her own over their daughter's hearts. Loki, with that mysterious gift of children, had cried herself out in her mothers' arms and then fallen asleep almost immediately. She looked, if not peaceful, at least still and easy and safe, curled up against Culsu with her little baby spikes poking through her bangs. She was every inch the young Oakdown, despite the healthy kiwi color of her skin—she'd inherited Culsu's beautiful dark eyes, and her hair, straight and black and constantly tangled from rounds of four-dimensional Pillow Fort, hung over her face and fluttered as she slept.

Lotivver didn't bother checking her mental shields at the sight; she felt Culsu shift and a second later her sudden outpouring of love for the two was met with a warm brush of the same.

"She'll be nine, when it happens." Culsu's voice was soft and even.

Lotivver swallowed. "It doesn't seem real." It was one of the first times she had ever been intensely grateful not to be timesensitive.

"It doesn't seem real to me, either," Culsu said quietly. And then, "It's not fair, Lotivver."

Lotivver, despite her body's protests, pushed herself up on one elbow. _I know,_ she projected, letting all of her own pent-up fear and misery tail the message. Checking that Loki was still sleeping, she shifted closer, so that Culsu's forehead brushed hers and Loki was nestled between them.

"We'll be all right," she whispered, running a thumb over the back of Culsu's hand and pressing a light, chaste kiss to her head, her temple, her wearily closed eyes, her lips...

_I love you,_ Culsu said again, but this time there were no words, only an impression edged with lancing pain, more vast than language could capture.

For a long time, they were silent, feeling Loki's tiny hearts tapping away beneath their clasped hands.

"Lotivver," Culsu said again, barely a breath. "Let's leave."

"What?"

"Run away. Leave Gallifrey."

"I thought you said that wouldn't work...?"

"It won't. But we should go anyway. Five spans. Just the three of us. Travel in time, see the universe..."

"I've seen a lot of it," Lotivver reminded her. "The happiest day of my life was when I came back."

"I'll remind you about that on Loki's birthday," Culsu muttered. "And our anniversary. And—"

"All right, I get it," Lotivver sighed, grinning tiredly and making a halfhearted swat in Culsu's general direction.

_Careful, you'll wake Loki,_ Culsu chided. "She's the daughter of a Time Lord," she continued in a low murmur, as if the conversation had never been interrupted. "She should see as much of time and space as we can show her. And I want to be with you," she added softly. Slim, pale fingers fluttered anxiously over Loki's hair, Lotivver's wrist, before twining back through her wife's and squeezing, holding her family tight. "Just you. For as long as I can."

* * *

"Culsu, you said you hadn't touched the interior dimensions. Those were your _exact words_."

Culsu nodded agreeably as she continued unlocking a door that hadn't been there a moment ago and could not possibly, according to the laws of physics, exist.

"If you try to tell me that you haven't altered the dimensions, I swear..."

"Swear what?" said Culsu cheerfully. "And I haven't, actually." The door, finally unlocked, swung open, revealing an empty room with divots in the walls and another door on the opposite side.

Lotivver blinked.

"Culsu," she said with exaggerated patience, "That looks a lot like altering the internal dimensions." The room in question, had the laws of the universe applied to it, should have extended past the exterior walls.

"I said I didn't alter the dimensions of the _flat_," said Culsu, as though she was talking to a child. "This isn't the flat."

"_Culsu..."_

"Lotivver, meet the Type 60 Mark 1 TT Capsule. She prefers to be called Granny. You've, um, been living inside her."

Lotivver stared at her.

"For... about five spans."

Lotivver's eye twitched.

"Don't be rude," Culsu said weakly. "Say hello."

"Um," said Lotivver. "Hello."

There was a distant sound like a large pair of wheezy, mechanical lungs.

"She likes you," said Culsu brightly. "I mean, she already liked you. She's liked you for a while."

"I don't think we've met," Lotivver informed the wall.

Culsu grinned nervously, shuffling her feet. "Well." She coughed. "Not formally. But, um. Granny's been here for quite a while. I mean, I always sort of had the idea and I started asking around, so I'd have plenty of options, and it turned out Granny had been looking for _ages_ only she couldn't find anyone to partner with after the war, and she was afraid of being decommissioned so I sort of brought her home with me. And then I had to hide her—"

"Why?" Lotivver demanded, concern briefly taking over. "Who's after her?"

Culsu coughed again and studied her feet. "Nobody, only I sort of hadn't warned you about her so she disguised herself as the front door and I moved all the furniture and rerouted the console room through _there _and wrote a programme to make the entryway look like the living room so you wouldn't kill me."

Lotivver took a very long, very deep breath.

"So," she said slowly, "instead of, you know, talking to me, you decided it made more sense to hack into a timeship, rewrite its programming, rearrange the rooms, biolock access to the rest of the ship, create a perfect replica of the flat, and then park so it looked like the front door."

"_Yes_," said Culsu, somewhat desperately.

Lotivver knew she should probably be extremely angry right now. Logic—nice, normal, non-Time Lord logic—dictated that anger was the proper response to learning that one's wife had been lying to them for five spans in order to disguise the presence of a third person living (quite literally) in the walls.

But it was just so very _Culsu. _Lotivver watched her as she stared hard at the floor, her cheeks flaming red, and burst into laughter.

"All right," she said when she could breathe again. "All right. Let's meet Granny."

* * *

"You know," Lotivver pointed out as Culsu parked, "we could have just _walked._"

"Granny needs to get eased back into things, Lotivver; she hasn't flown in ages."

There was a faint impression of affectionate acknowledgement in the back of Lotivver's mind. She'd felt it before, in a way, when Culsu was 'introducing' her to the sentient immortal timeship she'd been living in for five spans; it was a very strange kind of consciousness, not like anything she'd felt before, and it was incredibly difficult to nail down. She doubted whether she ever really would. Gallifreyans were difficult enough to understand when they had bodies and at least a vague notion of the concept of linear time.

"Who picks their kid up from daycare in a _time machine_, Culsu?"

"Us, apparently," said Culsu vacantly, polishing the zig-zag plotter's knob with a cleaning rag.

"You couldn't wait a few hours?"

"We need to talk to her teachers and get her assignments from later in the year, Lotivver. She can't just _stop_ learning because we're off to see the universe."

"I still don't see what that has to do with taking the timeship, " said Lotivver, idly twisting an interesting-looking dial on the console.

Culsu casually snapped her hand away with the cleaning rag, ducking Lotivver's halfhearted shove in response.

"If you're not careful," she chided, "you'll send us to Clom or the middle of a black hole, and that would be a miserable first trip. _Don't touch anything_," she clarified.

Sometimes, Lotivver would look at their lives, and the early days of their really terribly awkward Academy courtship would feel like a lifetime ago. And sometimes she had trouble believing that Culsu hadn't just corrected the professor's grammar for the fifteenth time while diagramming physically impossible floor plans on a tissue.

There were things that would never change. Culsu Oakdown existed solely to make other people look like idiots, and Lotivver loved her anyway.

* * *

Lotivver dropped the stack of textbooks with a slam.

_Sorry,_ she thought at Granny.

Here was the scariest thing, Lotivver was rather sure, about Gallifrey. Her three-year-old daughter, who couldn't put more than four words together in a sentence (in the Vinvocci tongue—she could only do single words in Gallifreyan, but Gallifreyan was so exact in everything there wasn't much need for more than one word to get across what she meant), was studying multivariable calculus, particle physics, and modern Gallifreyan history (10 000-year timespan) as well as the complete history of the Great and Bountiful Human Empire, as the history of an entire species was apparently not vast enough to merit splitting into its own year-level.

Lotivver's parents were particle physicists. They had spent their entire academic careers studying what her daughter was now learning in a brightly-coloured room with a special reading circle rug and alphabet cards on the walls.

Loki could hardly even _walk_ on her own. What sort of culture gave its toddlers three-inch-thick textbooks?

_Ow._ Lotivver rolled her shoulders. She'd forgotten how _heavy_ textbooks could be.

"Lotivver?" Culsu, in keeping with a time-honored tradition, could not be seen behind the teetering pile of grammar workbooks she was just barely managing to cling to with her fingertips. "Please help me."

"This was _your _idea," Lotivver said pettily.

"I don't know where the door is," Culsu pleaded.

"I don't know where your _brain _is."

"I can't feel my fingers, Lotivver!"

Lotivver sighed and took the top half of the workbook pile, to Culsu's visible relief. "I still say it's ridiculous that Granny had to create an entire room just to hold Loki's primary-school books." Admittedly, _room_ was a bit of a stretch; it was barely more than a closet, and the books it held included all seven volumes of the commonly-accepted Gallifreyan dictionary and a massive leather-bound set of encyclopædias. Culsu had laughed when she saw them, in the nostalgic fashion of someone rediscovering alphabet blocks. Apparently, the notion of encyclopædias simplified enough to be contained in _books_ was something reserved for exceptionally young children.

"We need to get her a proper set of the Encyclopædia Gallifrey, when she's older," said Culsu, smiling. "I got mine when I was admitted to the Academy. It's something of a tradition in Oakdown."

It took almost a full second for it to register on Culsu's face what she'd just said, and less than a moment for Lotivver's heart to break.

A polite knock on the door spared her being forced to say anything. (_As if there was anything to say, it wasn't _fair,_ they were supposed to have so much more time, you didn't have to be Gallifreyan to know that...)_

"Am I interrupting?" Loki's teacher asked teasingly, and Lotivver realized belatedly that she had wrapped a protective arm around Culsu without realizing it. Culsu jumped slightly at the interruption and was quick to move away from her wife, placing a respectable amount of space between them.

"No," she said hurriedly. "We were just... talking. Come in, Asedifeghejekal. Is there anything else we need to know?"

Asedifeghejekal, by her own admission, had simply never belonged at the Academy. Her struggles with her own teachers, however, had awakened an unforeseen passion for the idea of teaching herself; Culsu happily took credit for her roommate's success, citing the occasion she had snapped at the girl that she had no right to criticise her professors, as she had never tried their job. Asedifeghejekal had just as cheerfully told Culsu where she could stick her Academy diploma, and Lotivver, who had been three galaxies away at the time and fielding a three-way mental conference call at 0400, had recognized a lost cause when she saw one and gone to bed, missing the rest of the argument.

Whatever had happened the two had apparently worked out their differences; Culsu had been very firm about who she wanted teaching her daughter, and Loki was by all accounts a favorite, however much Asedifeghejekal denied she had such a thing.

"No, I think that's everything," she said. Lowering her voice with a conspirational smile as the child in question set about 'organizing' her textbooks using a system that made sense to nobody but a two-year-old, she added "I told Loki it was a regular school curriculum but I only gave her the basic maths and science package. Most of it's history, she'll get more out of that than she will learning particle physics. She's a lot like you."

"God, I hope not," Lotivver deadpanned. Culsu shot her a filthy look, and she stuck her tongue out at her.

Asedifeghejekal rolled her eyes, bringing back vivid memories of the Academy, but her voice was subdued enough that Lotivver took notice.

"Don't waste your time together making her study," she told Culsu, quiet and intent. "She's bright, she'll pick up what she needs, but you only..." She cut herself off abruptly, eyes flicking to Lotivver and back.

"Lotivver knows everything," Culsu said in response to a mental question Lotivver had not been privy to. "We don't keep secrets."

A sense of vague amusement from Granny disagreed with the statement.

"Shut up," Culsu muttered at the ceiling.

* * *

"_I'm going to kill you, Culsu!"_

"I know she's here _somewhere,"_ Culsu insisted. "She was disguised as an aqueduct support column, remember?"

Lotivver leaned out from behind a pile of woven baskets to peer down the miles upon miles of intricate aqueducts winding through the countryside.

"Yes," she hissed. "That's _very helpful."_

"Well, if _someone_ hadn't brought the entire Imperial Guard down on our heads, _maybe we would have more time to look for her!"_

Lotivver would have argued the point, except that she _had_ sort of brought the entire Imperial Guard down on them (how was she meant to know that rubbing her nose was a deadly insult, much less that she'd been talking to the High Emperor of Whereverthehelltheywere?) and a large squadron of what appeared to be deformed purple snake-dog people had just come around the corner.

"Mama," Loki whispered. "My nose itches."

"Shhh," Lotivver breathed. "Culsu, see if you can set off one of Granny's alarms, maybe we can hear it." Culsu nodded tersely as the Guard fanned out across the marketplace.

"Mama." Loki poked Lotivver in the back. "My _nose itches_."

Culsu hushed her quickly. "Scratch it, Loki. I can set off a proximity alarm but that's interior, we might not be able to hear it..."

"All the technology in all of space and time and you haven't invented panic buttons?" Lotivver hissed.

"I could set off a distress signal but that would call in reinforcements and I don't really feel like being arrested for misuse of Time Lord resources..." The remote gave a helpful beeping sound as Culsu clicked through a complicated-looking menu, and she shook it frantically in an attempt to shut it up. "Fire alarm, forced-entry whistle—Judoon mating call, who would install _that?!—_um, emergency dematerialisation..."

"Mama!" Loki sounded extremely urgent.

"Not now, sweetheart-"

Loki sneezed.

Loudly.

Culsu and Lotivver looked at each other for a moment before the Time Lord swept her thumb over every possible button on the remote-alarm system and bolted after her wife.

* * *

Lotivver winced.

"Culsu," she groaned, feeling gingerly along the back of her head. "I think I snapped one of my spines—_ow!" _ She ran a finger carefully along a rough edge, bracing herself and twisting off the dangling point. "Yeah," she said. "Definitely snapped. _Ow..."_

"Serves you right," Culsu muttered. She glared at the dust and pebbles strewn across the living room carpet as if they had personally offended her.

"Culsu, I'm—_ow ow ow shit—_I'm serious, I think there's more than one, these things have _nerve endings_, ow, god..."

Culsu sighed. "Let me see," she relented, leaning on the back of the sofa to get a proper look at her wife's spines. Lotivver resisted the urge to stab her in the face with them mostly because she thought it would probably hurt too much.

"I still blame you for this," Lotivver informed her, but there was suddenly very little heat behind it because Culsu's gentle prodding was doing wonders for her headache.

"Despite the fact that it was entirely your fault?" Culsu asked lightly. Lotivver could just _feel_ her smirking. She could also feel her running cool fingers along her spikes, though; easing the bruises and hairline fractures that tended to occur when a Vinvocci was kicked backwards through the doors of a time capsule by a snake-dog-person and cracked her spines on the floor, and it felt _really_ good, so she didn't much care.

"_My_ fault? How is any of this my fault?" _Right there,_ she thought with an inward sigh of relief, melting into the sofa.

Culsu obligingly pressed a careful thumb to the base of Lotivver's snapped-off spike. "You're the one who rubbed your nose at the emperor," she pointed out.

Lotivver hummed happily as the last of the sharp pain retreated. "Shut up, _Cthulhu_," she mumbled before leaning back to kiss her. Culsu rolled her eyes, but the warmth Lotivver was projecting took any sting out of the old nickname.

"Ew," Loki commented. She was sitting at the table in the kitchen, sucking the last dregs of frozen vanilla from the string of the Ice Planet her mothers had given her as compensation for nearly being arrested and executed. After several moments of profound reflection, the young Gallifreyan had solemnly decided that such a trade was fair.

_You might change your mind when you're older,_ Lotivver almost told her. The knife in her gut twisted even further.

She'd thought she'd cut the thought off before it could do any damage. She should have known better than to hope a sudden flash of anguish would go unnoticed by the touch-telepath giving her a scalp massage.

Culsu stiffened for a moment, but gave no other obvious sign of having heard anything. She gave Lotivver's shoulder a tiny squeeze, and the soft brush of a kiss on her forehead lingered for perhaps a few moments longer than usual, but when she turned to Loki her voice was even and cheerful. "Now that your mama's reminded me of it… You know that book we gave you on your last Loom-day? How would you like to meet the author?"

Loki broke into a wide grin, and Lotivver was suddenly reminded of a photograph on an ancient slide projector.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The Terror of Perception**

Granny had an older model casing, so the landing was rougher than what Culsu was used to—even after a few landings, she still half expected the landing of the Type 74 Mk IV they studied with in her classes at the Academy. The newer model was smoother and less obtrusive, materialising all at once rather than phasing in and out of the Void, and there was less temporal displacement. She winced as she brought Granny to a bumpy landing in a back alley in Providence, promising herself she'd make a few improvements when she could find the time.

_Of course, there wasn't much left of that, was there? _said a traitorous part of her consciousness. To shut it up, she smiled brightly at her wife and daughter. "So! Lovecraft, then! He's really very interesting, for a human. He wrote about what he called 'Yog Sothothery' or 'the Yog Sothoth Cycle', but it became widely known as the Cthulhu mythos."

Lottiver grinned to herself.

"Oh, shut up, you," said Culsu affectionately. "Anyway, what's really interesting is that a lot of it is real. Not _all_ of it, sure, and some of it he got wrong; for example, in Lovecraft's works, Azathoth is the most powerful of the Great Old Ones, when in reality, he's just another god of chaos. There are a few Shobogan cults devoted to him—"

"We're not visiting them," Lotivver said quickly. Loki pouted.

"What? Why not? It's practically tradition to go to at least one occult mass in Low Town. You have to wear _trousers_ when you go, to fit in with them. It's all very… you know," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "It's not particularly legal, of course, but it's very interesting to spend a night with the lower castes; to see how they live, and all that."

_She is _four spans old, _Culsu,_ Lotivver hissed silently. The pointed reminder that she herself could hardly be called _upper-caste_ didn't have to be verbalised.

"...Anyway. We can talk about that later. Maybe," she added quickly, seeing Lotivver's glare. "There are a lot of other names in his supposedly-fictional mythos you'll recognise: Dagon, Hastur, and of course you'll know Cthulhu…"

"That's you!" Loki giggled, clinging to Lotivver's leg as the Vinvocci made a valiant effort not to smirk.

Culsu raised an eyebrow haughtily, but didn't comment. "There are hundreds of Great Old Ones he _doesn't_ reference, of course, but almost all of the ones he does are based on real people, which lead some literary historians from the 30th and 31st centuries to theorise that he'd met someone who told him about the Great Old Ones. Nyarlathotep, the Haunter in the Dark, whom Lovecraft refers to as a 'Messenger of the Gods'." The quotation marks were audible. "By the 34th century—"

"Who was it?" Loki asked. "Who told him about Time Lords? And why did he make them monsters?"

_About that…_ Lotivver thought drily.

Culsu shot her a look and a wordless _Quiet, you._ Studiously ignoring her wife, she smiled at Loki and swooped her up, making the time tot squeal happily. "Well," she said. "You'll have to ask him, won't you?" Loki gave an eager nod, and Culsu gingerly set her back on her feet. Their daughter was getting heavier. "Come on, then," she said cheerfully, taking Loki's tiny kiwi-colored hand in her own. "Granny, try not to turn yourself into a lamppost again, it was almost impossible to find you last time…"

"Culsu!" Lotivver yelped, lunging across the console to slam the exterior doors shut. The console had slowly inched its way closer and closer to the living room over the past six months, and had finally settled happily into an unobtrusive corner; Granny was curious, she wanted to be a _part_ of things. Lotivver didn't really mind; the console wasn't terribly big and somehow made the room feel more, rather than less, like home. (Part of her was aware that she was just picking up echoes of Culsu's symbiosis with her timeship; most of her loved Granny's gentle presence and didn't much care why.)

"Hmm? What's wrong? I checked the scanners, Lotivver, we're _definitely_ in the right century." _This time._

Lotivver stared at her incredulously. "_Eighteenth-century Rhode Island_, Culsu! That means _humans_."

She hadn't seen Culsu look so taken-aback since she'd first snogged her, back in their Academy days. "Lotivver?" she said, amazed. "You're the _last _person I'd expect xenophobia from. Are you quite all right?"

Lotivver gave a long-suffering sigh. "Perception filters, Culsu. Only one of us looks human."

Culsu sent out a reflexive mental flash to the general tune of _I do _not _look human, _but otherwise ignored the statement in favour of staring incredulously at Lotivver. "We're behind Barnes Street. It's the middle of the night. No one is going to see you."

"Yes, they are," Lotivver said slowly. "That's the whole reason we're _here_, to talk to…" She trailed off with a sigh as she realised where the conversation was going.

"...to _H. P. Lovecraft_. And it's not as though you're going to scare _him_," said Culsu, unnecessary except to flaunt the Time Lord's logical superiority. "Or do you think walking cacti are somehow more terrifying than ancient, unknowable gods able to take human form?"

Lotivver was certain there was a reply she could make to that, but Culsu rolled her eyes and dragged her out of the timeship before she could figure out what it was.

* * *

"Mr. Lovecraft!"

"I'm not a cultist," said an irritated voice from behind the door. "Go away."

"Nor am I!" said Culsu, horrified at the suggestion. "Robes are traditional for members of my—"

"Mr. Lovecraft," Lotivver interrupted, elbowing Culsu in the ribs. "We're sorry to bother you this late, but it's not safe for us to be out during the day…" No, she realised, that sounded bad. "That is, people might see us—" Even worse.

"My mummy's Cthulhu!" Loki said helpfully. "And mama's Vinvocci so—"

"_Thank you, Loki!_" Lotivver yelped, clapping a hand over her daughter's mouth.

"What they're trying to say, Mr. Lovecraft," Culsu put in, "is that we're time travellers, and don't exactly fit in with 1928 Earth, so we had to come at night."

_It's 1926,_ Lotivver thought frantically.

_No it isn't!_

_You said you checked the scanners! The scanners said 1926, Humanian Era!_

_I don't need to check the scanners, Lotivver, I'm a Time Lord. I know the Gallifreyan year in this time period and that makes it—_

"...It's 1927," came Lovecraft's muffled reply.

_Ha! _Culsu thought.

_You were still wrong!_

_I forgot about leap years. The scanners were wrong too!_

"...Are you still there?" Lovecraft demanded.

"Hello!" Loki said to the closed door. "My name's Loki! I like your book!"

There was an exasperated sigh and chains clinked as several locks on the door were undone. "Listen," said Lovecraft as he turned the knob. "This has been very nice, but if you'll kindly _leave—"_

The door was yanked open, and promptly froze.

Loki waved happily. Howard Lovecraft, still staring at Lotivver, gave an absentminded wave in return.

"May we come in?" said Culsu.

Lovecraft blinked, breaking out of his momentary stupor. "Are you incapable of entering without an invitation?"

"What? No, I'm just trying to be polite. You're my daughter's favourite author, after all, I'd hate to be rude."

Lotivver snorted softly. Culsu gave her a good-natured mental swat.

Lovecraft, having shaken himself somewhat out of his daze, glanced briefly at Culsu. "Would you, ah… like to come in? On the condition you don't cause anyone here any harm."

Culsu smiled demurely at the author. "Of course. The House of Oakdown bears you no ill will." She inclined her head in greeting, the lantern-light making the tapetum in her eyes glow.

To his credit, Lovecraft didn't react but to raise an eyebrow.

* * *

"That went surprisingly well!" said Culsu brightly once they'd returned to the timeship, who had deigned to disguise herself as a Rowe cigarette vending machine.

Culsu had an interesting definition of 'going well'. No one had died, at least, but Lotivver wasn't certain that Lovecraft had been entirely mentally present. The poor man had seemed an odd combination of dazed and hyper-alert; not so much following the conversation as watching for the slightest sign that one of his visitors was about to metamorphosise into an eldritch abomination. The closest they had gotten was Loki's reaction to the coffee she'd drained before Lotivver realised she'd been offered it.

"He's very perceptive," Culsu said approvingly. "Not a hint of psychic ability, of course, but he figured out we were using mental communication very quickly."

"Well, people tend to do that when you correct their Gallifreyan history pretending to hand them a pen." He had reacted remarkably well to the unexpected touch-telepathy. His neighbors probably hadn't even heard him shriek. "He's a human author, Culsu, he doesn't care about historical inaccuracies in the Great Vampire Wars!"

"He ought to if he's writing about them!"

Lotivver sighed.

"I liked him," Loki said sleepily, shifting in Lotivver's arms. She was clutching a recently-signed black-leather copy of the Necronomicon, in which her new friend had included a quick sketch of her family. Lotivver was slightly disturbed by his interpretation, but thought it would be rude to mention. Culsu had seemed to approve of how he'd drawn _her_, in any case, emphasising her inhuman features. "He doesn't like other human chapters much, does he, mummy?"

Culsu smiled and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "No, I don't think he does. Tired?"

"No," Loki muttered.

Granny _whooshed_ in what could have been a laugh. Loki didn't hear her, as she was asleep.

Culsu kissed Lotivver lightly. "Can you get her to bed? I'll move us into the Void before someone decides to buy a pack of cigarettes."

"The Void?" said Lotivver, grinning. "Where to next, the Dreamlands of the unknown Kadath?"

Culsu lifted her head with mostly-affected haughtiness. "I was _going_ to say pre-spaceflight Pandorica VII."

...Oh.

"The ancient Vinvocci?" Lotivver said hesitantly. "I... didn't know you were interested." Culsu was a sweetheart, she really was, and she had somehow managed to avoid a lot of her people's xenophobia and classism; but she was still a Time Lord, very much one. Certainly Lotivver had never anticipated her taking time out of their grand tour of the universe to visit the nomadic desert culture of talking cactus people.

Culsu brushed almost shyly against her mind. _It's part of who she is,_ she said awkwardly, nodding at their sleeping daughter. _She should know about them._

Lotivver grinned widely, and only restrained herself from flinging herself at Culsu like an undergrad again because Loki was in her arms.

* * *

"Good morning!"

Lotivver groaned and rolled over, pressing a pillow over her face to block out the sudden light.

"'s not morning yet," she griped.

"Yes it is," said Culsu smugly.

_Stupid Time Lord._

_Lazy Vinvocci. We materialized three hours ago, Loki wants to explore._

Lotivver groaned again.

From Pandorica VII (_that _had been quite the trip; Culsu had, for once, been the one who needed the perception filter, and seeing her wife as a Vinvocci had been both interesting and intensely uncomfortable) they had taken off like they were being hunted. Culsu denied any such thing with an easy smile and a peck on the cheek; still, Lotivver had felt a slight guardedness in her thoughts, and she'd kept Loki close as they leapfrogged across the universe.

Culsu had whirled them almost carelessly from the Eye of Orion to the Skies of Always to the Singing Towers of Darillium to a stunningly gorgeous chain-reaction of supernovas in the corner of an unobtrusive galaxy somewhere in the Mutter's Spiral, where they had snuggled close together with their feet dangling out the doorway and sipped purple Vinvocci tea until Loki fell asleep on Culsu's lap. The crystal waterfalls and luxurious suites and spa treatments at Midnight were, Lotivver discovered, infinitely more enjoyable without quantum-physics lectures, whatever Culsu insisted to the contrary; she pouted enough that their next trip had been an excruciating xenobiology lecture at some famous university. The fact that Loki had enjoyed it was almost disturbing.

Their manic pace had slowed somewhat lately, as who- or whatever hadn't been chasing them apparently began to lose interest. Still, the constantly-changing venues and excitement took their toll sometimes, and Lotivver was _tired._

"Lotivver," Culsu said, perching on the side of the bed and poking her leg. "_Lotivver_… Lotivver, you can't stay in there forever, if you pull that pillow over your head any harder you're going to poke holes in it. There will be feathers _everywhere,_ Lotivver."

Lotivver growled something that she very much hoped Loki couldn't hear.

A high-pitched gasp told her that she had. Lotivver bit the inside of her mouth in an attempt not to repeat it.

_Rude,_ Culsu huffed.

Lotivver sent her a vivid mental picture of a very rude gesture before stretching and reluctantly extricating herself from under her pillow. She felt one of her spines catch, and carefully pulled the impaled pillow off of her head.

_I told you._

"It didn't tear, it's just a hole."

_Third time in a span, Lotivver. You're a menace to bedclothes._

_Shut up._ "Where are we?" she asked blurrily. "Or _when_ are we."

"Viśl, Etruria, Terra. Early… ninth century BCE, Humanian Era."

"And _why_ are we here?" asked Lotivver, the final syllable transforming into a wide yawn as she swung her legs off the side of the bed, sitting up and rubbing at tired eyes. "It doesn't really seem like your sort of place."

"Well," said Culsu awkwardly. "It's an important part of the Etruscan confederacy in this time period. I'm sure it's very nice…" Translation: Granny had decided to take control, and Culsu honestly had no idea why they were there.

"The last time you said someplace would probably be very nice, there were _Cybermen_ there, Culsu," said Lotivver.

"They were no danger to us! Their conversion techniques are only compatible with mammals."

"Which you look very similar to!" Lotivver hissed, pulling a tunic over her head. The nicest thing about not being on Gallifrey was being able to wear _normal_ clothes rather than their heavy robes. Technically, Lotivver could have worn whatever style she wanted, by virtue of being an alien and therefore outside the caste system. Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar's human bodyguard, Leelandredloomsagwinaechegesima, was a case study of the point, wearing leather skins which looked primitive even to Lotivver, who considered herself very open to other cultures. She had married into the Prydonian chapter, like Lotivver had, so she had the very wide colour choice of orange or orange-brown, and had deigned to use orange-brown. Very nice girl, Lotivver had thought when she'd met her, if a bit too fond of blades.

Gallifrey was of course rather _cold,_ though, so the borderline freedom of expression they had was hampered by practicality. Leela wore the leather skins of her culture through stubbornness, and possibly thick skin. Lotivver preferred being able to feel her extremities, and so gave in to Gallifreyan styles which she didn't really like but didn't hate either, although she could never have been convinced to wear one of those _hideous_ collars.

One of the first things she had done after they left Gallifrey was get a few articles of clothing from her own people. Or, really, any people, so long as they weren't orange or any derivative thereof. She was green. It wasn't particularly complimentary.

"Perception filter," Culsu called, tossing the clip from across the room, and Lotivver caught it with a brief twinge of distaste, slipping the unobtrusive band over her elbow. It had been nice, spending a few months able to walk about without having to worry about being seen. The massage therapists at Midnight could do wonderful things with Vinvocci spines.

"Can we go now?" Loki bounced by the door. She had already been fitted with her perception filter, dark hair braided and wearing a surprisingly accurate-looking belted tunic, as though Culsu had actually made a cursory attempt at making her look as though she belonged in the era. For once, Culsu's bright-orange robes almost looked normal.

"Unless your mother wants to go back to sleep…"

"I'm _awake_," Lotivver griped. "Let's go see what Granny thinks is so important before I regret it."

* * *

"It's actually very good, Culsu," Lotivver informed her wife, tearing a small chunk off the hot pork-stuffed bun and handing it down to Loki. "You should try some."

"I'll eat something when we get back to Granny," Culsu said firmly. "You can eat it, though."

_Thank you for your permission,_ Lotivver said drily. A quick, warning burst of alarm from Culsu cut off the instinctive kiss she'd been about to give her. _Right. Thanks. _The people here might not have been entirely adverse to women expressing themselves sexually (and the artwork was certainly proof of that), but true equality was still far in the future. It might have been alright for men to kiss in certain situations, but this was still a pre-spaceflight Terran culture. Lotivver had been trying to erase the term _primative_ from her vocabulary since living on Gallifrey, but some practices still made it float to the surface.

"My feet are cold," Loki complained. Her little boots were warm, but the snow had started to soak the padding.

"Don't worry, we're almost back," Lotivver consoled her. "Granny will be nice and warm and your mother can get something _Gallifreyan_ to eat."

"You're silly, mummy," Loki giggled, stuffing her pork tidbit into her mouth.

"I am not," Culsu grumped. "I just feel like Gallifreyan food."

"You're silly, sweetheart," Lotivver informed her with grave regret.

"Am not."

"Are too."

Culsu, fighting back a smile and losing, reached out and shoved her wife good-naturedly.

It wasn't a hard shove, barely enough to knock her off-balance. But the stone streets had been worn smooth over the years by hundreds of feet, and had very little in the way of traction; Lotivver could have compensated for that, if they hadn't been passing a metalworker's shop at the worst possible moment. The heat from the forge had partially melted the snow surrounding the shop, dissolving it into thick, treacherous slush that slumped and trickled and refroze itself in seemingly random patterns. Lotivver staggered, slipped, and toppled over, landing heavily on her back with most of her weight on one arm. There was a quiet _crunch_ as something small and hard under her elbow shattered, and for a moment she thought she'd broken her arm.

That was before she felt Culsu's mind rushing into hers, coloured with raw terror. She looked down at her arm, and it wasn't broken. It was green.

Her perception filter was gone.

Culsu had pulled her to her feet before Lotivver noticed she'd moved, pushing Loki into her arms and propelling them down the street as shouts of horror erupted around them. Lotivver realized suddenly what they were seeing; a spined, alien creature, some sort of demon, sprinting away with a child in its arms. Loki still looked human.

_Well,_ she thought as shrieking men and women scrambled over themselves, some throwing rocks or bricks or—_please don't let that be a chamber pot_—shoes, and most simply getting in the way. _This can't get any worse._

That was, of course, when things got infinitely worse.

Lotivver almost ran straight into a half-finished blade; it was Culsu who spotted the danger, picking up on the man's intent just in time to grab Lotivver's collar and haul her to the side, throwing them into a stone wall at the last possible moment. Loki's head struck the alley wall, hard, and she cried out in pain. Lotivver didn't have time to comfort her.

Their metalworker friend who had almost run her through was blocking their path now, and unlike the others, he did not seem particularly terrified. The nondescript piece of iron he'd been working with, glowing dangerously yellow along most of the rough shaft, waved warningly at Lotivver's face. It looked rather uncomfortably sharp already. Still, the man was hesitating, glancing at Loki, and Lotivver was grudgingly thankful that he seemed unwilling to risk hurting the child.

Culsu planted herself in front of her wife and daughter, pressing them between her and the wall, and something in her stance shifted away from human. Lotivver felt, in the small part of her mind not consumed by frantic desperation, that she was projecting empathically at the mob, trying to force fear to overcome hatred long enough for them to make their escape to the timeship, which was only a few metres away at this point.

Culsu was very good at empathic projections—it was how they'd met, and a hectospan later, Lotivver could still hear a drumbeat if she thought back to it—but she wasn't particularly good at gauging the _reaction_ to them. Lotivver, as relatively weak psychically as she was, could feel the mob mentality, a heavy, hulking thing, shift back from fear to anger, and stronger than before. Culsu had shown her colours as something other than human.

The metalworker snarled and drove the rough-hewn sword forward. Culsu's intense concentration snapped like a cut harpstring as she gave an understated gasp of pain, taking an unsteady step backwards, nearly falling back against Lotivver.

Culsu's hands flew to her abdomen, and Lotivver reeled, biting back a shriek of agony as the mental backlash of the injury ripped through her. The iron implement had gone through the lower part of Culsu's ribcage and downwards, and she could _feel _the tip, burning hot against her spine. Culsu pulled out the the blade with difficulty, already going weak with shock and blood loss. The white-hot metal burnt her hand, and she dropped the sword. It clanged loudly on the cobblestones in the sudden silence, rivulets of orange-red blood splattering on the snow and ice, pooling and spilling over her fingers.

Culsu choked, and her words came in quick, panicked mental bursts. _Get in._

_What?_

_Granny. Capsule. Get in. I—_ Lotivver felt the beginnings of a sickening wave of pain before Culsu fumbled over their mental link and the connection severed.

"Culsu," Lotivver said desperately. She tried to reach out to her, touch her mind, find some sort of desperate reassurance that she was all right—this was too _fast_, she couldn't process, but Culsu's mind was closed off, locked down firmly with pain. "_Culsu!_"

The Time Lord was past hearing. She stared at her burnt hand mutely as golden sparks of regenerative energy began to gather on her skin. It shone like she was holding a flame, and some of the humans reeled backwards in fear as the golden light raced up her arm and her skin glowed like white marble shining in the sun, too bright to look at. She exploded into golden flames, and the Etruscans screamed.

It was all over very quickly, the dramatic explosion of regenerative energy burning for scant seconds before dissipating as if it were never there. Culsu stood doubled over, breathing heavily, dark hair falling in ringlets in front of her new face, obscuring her features.

They were still faced by an angry mob.

Admittedly at least half the mob had fainted and the rest looked about ready to follow them; but there were a few who were already recovering, and Lotivver could feel a slow rise of hysteria beginning. The crowd was terrified enough to rip them to shreds.

"_Culsu!"_ she shouted with voice and mind alike. "We need to leave. _Now. _Where's Granny?_"_ Not for the first time, she cursed the timeship's determined approach to blending in. Granny was creative, detail-oriented and excellent at finding unobtrusive materialisation sites, and it was going to get them killed.

Culsu didn't verbally reply, deigning instead to grab the arm Lotivver didn't have around Loki and pull her towards an ivy-covered portion of wall. It didn't look any different from the rest of the walls, but when Culsu touched the bricks, they melted away into nothing as the outer plasmic shell re-fitted itself. The lights of the console room were deep red with worry, only fading once Culsu had staggered up to the console and phased them into the Vortex, leaving an empty span of wall behind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: The Renegade Equation**

The next fifteen millispans were quite possibly the most anxious Lotivver had ever experienced; the only thing that came close was after her final exams, waiting to find out if she had made passing marks. But Culsu had been there to support her, and to distract her from worrying too much when her placations failed to have effect (Asedifeghejekal left in a huff after that, muttering about cavorting with aliens and how she'd expect better of a Newblood from a Noble House, but Culsu had mumbled "sarcasm" into the nape of her neck, and Lotivver had let it pass).

Now, Culsu's absence grated at the edge of her consciousness. Lotivver kept reflexively reaching out, trying to fill the gaping emptiness of a missing mental link, and finding nothing. Not a barrier, not an incompatible structure, not even the muted, almost nonexistent touch of a sleeping mind. It was as if Culsu wasn't even there. Logically, Lotivver knew that she had lived years without that connection, but it seemed impossible now to manage without it.

She reached out again without realising it, and recoiled once more from the terrifying emptiness.

Lotivver understood the basics of regeneration, as much as was possible for a non-Gallifreyan. She knew how a Zero Room worked, she knew that Culsu was just down the hall, recuperating from her regeneration and perfectly safe. But she couldn't suppress the deep-rooted feeling that she'd died.

Loki sniffled in her arms. The poor little girl had been through too much in one day. While xenophobia was far from alien to a Gallifreyan, she'd been raised well, surrounded for the most part by people who at least saw Lotivver as harmless, if never quite an equal. It had been one of the main reasons they'd wanted Asedifeghejekal to handle her primary schooling; Loki was a young Time Lord through and through, Loomed properly and into an ancient and respected House, but it would have been so terribly easy for the visible reminders of her Vinvocci heritage to give her difficulties, with the wrong teachers.

As a result, Lokrnothale Oakdown had been mostly shielded from the idea that her and her mother's appearances could incite such violent feelings of hatred and fear. Her telepathy was still weak, not fully developed, but she could still connect to her parents' minds. She'd felt everything, and this time she hadn't been able to curl up with her mothers and cry herself to sleep.

It had been a long night. Or whatever counted as night in a timeship.

"Are you _sure?"_ Loki asked tearfully. She'd been asking the same question every few microspans since Culsu had dematerialised Granny and immediately stumbled her way to the Zero Room with only a brief flicker of explanation for her wife.

"Yes, sweetheart," Lotivver said gently. "I promise. Mummy's okay. We just can't feel her right now, but as soon as she gets out of the Zero Room we will."

"But she's not _there_," Loki sobbed.

Lotivver pulled the exhausted child closer, squeezing her. "It feels scary," she acknowledged, trying not to cry. _Culsu, please come back._ "But I promise she's okay. She got hurt, and making herself better made her tired. So Granny had to make a special place for her to go to make sure nothing happened to her. If anything bad happened, Granny would tell us. See how calm she is?"

Loki nodded slowly, pressing her face into Lotivver's shoulder. "Is she gonna wake up soon?"

Lotivver didn't have enough time to form a reply before the door slid open and Culsu stepped out in her torn and bloodied robes. The light from the Zero Room behind her shone dramatically, and she looked every bit the dark goddess she was named for.

"That interior design is worse than the Capitol," she said. "I mean, at least the Capitol _changes_. I could have really done with something to look at, or a book to read, or _something_. I could have finished that novel I've been trying to read for the past month—_oof._"

She smiled down at the sobbing time tot who had firmly attached herself around her mummy's legs. "Hello, Loki," she said gently, prying the girl's tiny fingers off of her legs and picking her up to hug tightly. "Have you gotten taller, or have I gotten shorter? Oh, I have! That's interesting! Granny, you haven't moved the wardrobe, have you? These robes aren't salvageable."

The walls glowed a bit, and she nodded to herself, hair bouncing cheerfully. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "Lotivver, I almost forgot! I inspired a religion!"

"That's nice," Lotivver said. "Get over here _now."_

Culsu blushed, shifting Loki to one arm and curling up on the couch next to her wife. "That's why Granny made us stop in Etruria," she explained. "I realised it after I'd been staring at the ceiling for about nine millispans. See, Culsu is a guardian of hell, that's where I got my name—"

"How cheery."

"—and I just realised I think I _am_ Culsu," said Culsu. "I don't think she existed in their mythology before that time period, and they're only primi—they're only just a fledgeling culture," she corrected herself hastily, "and what they saw would be interpreted in a way they could understand, and…" she trailed off with a tiny gasp as she finally made skin-to-skin contact, and Lotivver felt their mutual relief at the end of that awful silence.

_It's really lonely in there,_ Culsu said in what could only be described as a mental whimper, closing her eyes and resting her head tiredly against Lotivver's shoulder.

_Please don't ever do that again._

_I can't promise._

_Try._

Culsu sighed. "I promise," she said in the Vinvocci language. It didn't hold the same weight as the declaration would have had in Gallifreyan, a time-sensitive language with infinite specification and technicalities. In Gallifreyan she would have had to admit it was a promise made to be broken. "I'm sorry for worrying you."

Lotivver was trapped under Loki, her free arm squished between the sofa cushions, but she reached out with her mind and pulled them both as close as she could, and for a very long time they stayed that way, basking in each others' presence.

"Lotivver?" Culsu said eventually.

"Mmm?"

"I'm not blonde, am I?"

"Ah," said Lotivver. "No. No, you're really not."

* * *

Eventually they disentangled themselves; Culsu was still wearing torn and bloodied robes like something out of a two-bit horror film, and she needed to change. She'd like to see her new face, at that. Lotivver hadn't expanded on her not-blondeness, which was a bit worrying. What if she had blue hair or something like that? Cerulean hair, how _embarassing_.

Her hair was, thankfully, not blue. It was a thoroughly respectable Oakdown black, although the texture was a bit worryingly Lungbarrow-esque.

"Culsu," Lotivver sighed. "Stop poking your hair."

"It's… _bouncy,"_ she explained distastefully. "I feel like an Oldblood. Oakdowns don't have bouncy hair, it's just not on."

"You can straighten it."

"But—!" She cut herself off, not knowing quite how to go about saying 'that takes effort' without sounding like she was a Time Tot.

Lotivver rolled her eyes, and Culsu mentally stuck her tongue out at her. Her wife didn't bother hiding a smirk as she hugged her from behind and kissed her temple. "Get dressed," she ordered. "Loki misses you."

_Just Loki?_ Culsu pointedly projected the thought at Lotivver, while aloud she moaned. "Nothing fits right!" she said, pulling at her too-long robes. "And it all _feels_ wrong."

_Yes,_ Lotivver said warmly. She squeezed her tightly. _Just Loki. I didn't miss you at all, you ridiculous Oakdown._

"These robes are far too fine to feel scratchy," Culsu muttered.

"We'll alter them," Lotivver promised.

"How can you make robes _softer_?"

"Dryer sheets, Culsu."

She grumbled, but was forced to concede that this was a logical course of action. She tried not to grump at the tingle of amusement that Lotivver was being kind enough not to actively project. The irritating scratchiness of the robes was even distracting her from bantering with her wife—the Zero Room wreaked merry havoc on one's senses, she'd learned that but never experienced it firsthand before. This was clearly an unacceptable state of affairs.

Lotivver sighed again. Culsu was mildly impressed; she'd been shielding that last thought. Lotivver was getting good.

"If they bother you that much," she said, "you can wear something of mine until we've had a chance to soften them a bit. I know," she said quickly, cutting off Culsu's mental shout of horror. "It's just _not done._ I promise I won't tell your Cousins that you wore something other than Prydonian robes for all of a millispan. Let it never be said I don't look out for my wife's reputation." _Also, ow. Don't think at me so loud, it gives me a headache._ "Your stuck-up Gallifreyan honour is safe with me, sweetheart."

Culsu glared at her, as best she could with Lotivver's head firmly nestled on her shoulder. _That was sarcasm. I'm quite certain that was sarcasm._

_Just put some clothes on, Oakdown. I'm hungry. Robes would look ridiculous in 32nd-century Terra, anyway._

She managed to put on the trousers without falling over more than four times, so there was that, at least. The tunic had her confused for a nanospan— "_Where's the _rest_ of it?"_—but it was altogether rather straightforward, and Lotivver put a silky orange scarf around her neck so she could feel at least _slightly_ Gallifreyan; the species as a whole had something against outfits in less than six separate pieces.

"Ready?" Lotivver asked finally. Culsu actually felt decidedly naked, but there didn't appear to be any more parts left and anyway, she reminded herself, this is what Lotivver wore all the time and she always looked fine. Better than fine, even!

"I think so…"

"You take a long time, mummy," Loki observed from the sofa. "I put on trousers _way_ faster."

"Be nice, Loki," Lotivver said sternly. "It's her first time. You needed practice too."

Culsu was trying very hard not to imagine exactly how scandalised her family would be by this conversation when Granny impressed a sense of urgency at the back of her mind. She glanced over at the console, and her hearts sank like stones as she saw the pattern of the flashing controls.

"Lotivver," she said with as much lighthearted casualness as she could manage, "Why don't you and Loki go find us a table? There's one more thing I need to take care of here. I won't be long."

_Culsu, I swear, if you're changing back into robes…_

Actually, Culsu thought, that would have been a very good idea if she'd had the time. _It's just a Time Lord thing, _she said. _I'll catch up._

_Is this a regeneration thing, or…?_

Culsu forced a smile. _Of a sort, yes._ It was not, technically, a lie. "Lotivver," she said, "I'm fine, really. Go find us a place to eat, I'll find you. Two microspans. Cross my hearts."

She waited until the door had firmly closed behind them before she touched the controls.

* * *

It felt good to be able to walk around openly again.

Lotivver wouldn't have been able to use a perception filter anyway, as hers was most definitely broken beyond reasonable repair; it felt wonderful to be able to walk down a sunny street with Loki bouncing around and excitedly pointing out shop windows, and not have to worry about being chased out with torches and pitchforks. Besides, even the high-quality perception filters _itched._

Yes, she thought as a pair of women passing them up smiled unconcernedly at Loki, as if she were any other toddler energetically getting underfoot. 32nd-century Cardiff had been a very good place to stop for lunch.

There were people from all over the Local Group here, all intermingling. Street vendors sold translations of popular books, posters of famous artworks, clothes and foods from across the galaxy; Culsu probably _could_ have worn her robes and not have been out of place, but the sight of her in trousers was too perfect.

Electronic screens displayed scrolling announcements of the academic speakers, with locations and times; there were six or seven names, but the one which stuck out was Dr Mera Jaq, and rightly so—Lotivver had heard the name before, from her translation work. She was an expert (or, as Culsu said, 'expert') in non-communitative dynamic systems. This would be her first seminar at Cardiff University, and Cardiff University's first alien professor (they had at this point the largest population of non-human students, thanks to their location alongside the Cardiff Rift). There was something of a celebration going on to commemorate it, complete with cheesy decorations, restaurants offering discounts to students, and religious protestors being happily ignored.

A humanoid with translucent skin was doing contortionism in the middle of a small ring of spectators. It was equal parts fascinating and creepy watching their lungs heave as they twisted their spine far beyond what ought to have been possible. A group of what Lotivver assumed were music majors had set up partway down the sidewalk, and were doing their best to play offworld pieces. She considered asking them if they knew any Vinvocci waltzes, then remembered that certain Vinvocci waltzes were used to test the shatter resistance of radiation glass. She decided to give them a miss.

"Loki," she called. Loki looked up from a dog she'd been making friends with and scurried back to her mother's side. "Let's see if we can find someplace to eat, shall we? We'll be nice to your mother and not make her have fish and chips again." _Well, there go half our options._

She took the precaution of taking Loki's hand firmly in her own as they poked their way along the street. Culsu could very well catch them before they found a place to eat at this rate; it was a happy thought, so Lotivver saw no reason to speed up. Anyway, she didn't want to run into anyone.

Naturally, someone ran into _her _instead.

"Oh, hello!" he said cheerfully. She blinked hard, trying to clear her head of the stars winking around it from being slammed rather violently into a brick wall. "I'm terribly sorry, didn't see you there, have you seen any flying squid today?" He frowned. "They might be invisible. In which case, have you noticed the faint smell of raspberries? Of course it's not _really_ raspberries, just the breakdown of gasses in their intestinal tracts, but it would smell like it."

Loki giggled. Lotivver was more shell-shocked than amused. "...Sorry?"

"Squid!" the man exclaimed. "Flying squid, possibly invisible, smell like raspberries, they've been behind a lot of the unexplained explosions around the past few days, surely you noticed the explosions!"

"We're just here to get lunch," Lotivver said dumbly. Now that her head had stopped spinning, she thought privately that she looked more normal than the stranger did. Even a walking cactus seemed less out-of-place here than a pale Edwardian gentleman running around talking about invisible squid.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. He seemed to do a great deal of exclaiming. "I definitely recommend the Millenium Café, down the street, turn right at the library and it'll be directly on your left. There's a very comical picture of a frog on the sign; not quite sure why. But you _really_ haven't noticed the _explosions?_"

"We got here a microspan ago," Lotivver said irritably. "_To get lunch_."

"Yes, I _know,_" he said impatiently. "You mentioned… oh!" Finally, he seemed utterly speechless. "Oh. You… but you're _Vinvocci!"_

"What?"

"_Microspans_!"

Lotivver pulled Loki closer beside her. "What about them?" she said.

"You've been to Gallifrey!" He seemed astounded, but not angry, which was better than a lot of the reactions Lotivver had experienced. Still, his shock at the notion of a mere Vinvocci having been to Gallifrey made her bristle instinctively.

"I graduated from Prydon Academy," she said coolly.

He stared at her, dumbfounded, for several long moments, and she was mentally preparing a blistering tirade when he broke into a wide grin. "But that's _brilliant!"_ He laughed delightedly, and Loki peeked out from behind her mama's legs. "Prydon, _really?_ That's incredible, they finally did it? In my day they'd _never_ have... And… oh!" He paused, staring at Loki, and his dazzling smile widened. She hid shyly again, and he squatted, facing her on her level. His delighted grin never faded, but it somehow looked infinitely gentler. "Hello there," he said softly. "You're Gallifreyan, aren't you? It's all right," he encouraged her. "So am I. I can feel your mind. Don't worry, I won't prod at it. Here!" He brightened, fishing for a moment in his velvet jacket. "Jelly baby?"

If Loki noticed her mother stiffening with shock, she ignored it. The little Time Tot was giggling, enchanted by her new friend's fluffy hair and bag of candies.

"There we are," he said softly. He looked at Loki as if she were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "And she's yours?" he asked Lotivver, eyes wide with wonder. "She's full Gallifreyan but she's _yours,_ too, isn't she? Aren't you?" he murmured to Loki, standing carefully and picking her up with him, making her laugh. "You are… _amazing,"_ he breathed.

Loki giggled. "Mummy!" she called, waving at Culsu from over his shoulder, and Lotivver tried not to wince. Hopefully she wouldn't realise who the man was, and just think he was some… friendly renegade. Those existed, right?

Anyway, Culsu looked like a renegade herself now, with her Vinvocci-styled tunic and trousers. Maybe they'd get along.

"_Put her down_."

Well, there went that hope. Culsu glared at the man with murder in her eyes, grabbing Loki's hand the moment he'd lowered her to the ground.

"Hello!" he said brightly. "Are you her mother, then? I'm—"

"I know who you are," Culsu ground out. "Everyone in this Universe knows who you are."

"Oh, well, I wouldn't go that far…"

Culsu scowled, gripping Lotivver's wrist hard enough to bruise and pulling her slowly away from him. "I would," she said simply. "Stay away from my family, _Doctor._"

The Doctor seemed only to have heard the last word. "But you're a _Time Lord,_" he cried blissfully. "That's _astounding,_ the two of you…? And she…? That's _brilliant!_ The three of you, travelling around time and space… do you have a TARDIS?"

"What's a TARDIS?" Lotivver asked, bewildered.

"We have a _TT Capsule_," Culsu growled, "for the time being."

The Doctor laughed happily. "Beautiful!" he cheered. "Wait, wait… are you an _Oakdown?_"

Culsu twitched. "The only thing I share with the Master is blood."

"Really? You seem to share his opinion of me," the Doctor said lightly. "Now, I don't know what they might have told you at the Academy, but—"

Lotivver was never quite certain exactly what happened next. She felt a tidal wave of rage and fear and shrieking frustration for only a few seconds before her mental link with Culsu was overwhelmed by the sheer force; something tore and _snapped_ and sent her reeling, stumbling blindly away from her wife as the world swam and distorted around her, everything smoke and fear and screams and the drums of war.

"Oh," said the Doctor with a small voice. "That."

Lotivver _was_ fairly certain that that's when Culsu punched him in the face.

* * *

Their discussion when they got back to the TT Capsule was possibly the most difficult of Culsu's life; even explaining to her House that she wanted to marry an alien had been easier, and, well. That had been interesting, to say the least.

Culsu stood at the console for a microspan after they'd phased into the Vortex, staring at the rows of buttons and levers and biting her lower lip. She sighed, letting her head fall back. The ceiling looked for all the world like cracking plaster, just like their old flat's. It had been in the ancient sector of the Capitol, made like they had been in the Dark Times. Actually, the building might have been from the Dark Times, at that, one of the few surviving remnants of the culture before telepathic walls.

Lotivver, as well as she knew the language, didn't understand the Matrix beyond 'it exists', so suddenly having walls which ate rubbish and chairs which moved didn't seem overly odd to her; Culsu had just said she'd connected them to the Hivemind when Granny had gone out of her way to be helpful. It was well enough.

But there were some things that couldn't be explained away. She could feel Lotivver's eyes on her back. Lunch had been a tense affair, Culsu jumping at every movement, afraid that it would be the Time Lords come to drag them back.

"What's wrong?"

Culsu took a deep breath. This was it. "The Time Lords found us," she said. "We've been instructed to return to Gallifrey."

When Lotivver didn't respond, Culsu finally turned away from the console to look at her. She immediately wished she hadn't. The look on Lotivver's face was enough to break her hearts.

She swallowed. "I'm being recalled," she said hollowly.

"No," Lotivver whispered.

Culsu turned back around, gripping Granny's controls like a lifeline. "I can't ignore the summons," she said, and she hated herself for having to say it. "In another situation, they might ignore renegades, if they aren't breaking the Laws of Time." It hurt her to admit that was what they were, but when she'd gotten the message and considered telling them to piss off, had barely been able to echo the "praise be to Lord Rassilon"... There was no doubting that they were, now. "But this is a Time War, even larger than the Second War in Heaven, and they want everyone back to fight for them. Every researcher, every politician, every renegade and exile."

She didn't need to be looking to feel Lotivver glance at the door to Loki's room. "How long?" she asked quietly. And then, with the heavy feeling of a question she already knew the answer to, _Can we run?_

_They're locked onto us. We have no choice but to answer them, or they'll pull us back themselves. _Culsu's voice in her head was thick with misery. She couldn't risk that, not with her wife and daughter in the crossfire. "We have a day or so," she said. "We can make a quick stop at Pandorica VII. You can say goodbye to your family." Which one would be up to her.

"...Culsu?"

Culsu, staring determinedly at the console and fighting not to cry, she'd _known_ this might happen and she was _not_ going to break down, sent a brief burst of acknowledgement in return.

It was answered with a barely-contained torrent of anxious hopelessness, laced with loneliness and longing. There were no words in the shifting flood of emotion, but she understood it all the same.

_Don't leave me._

Tears prickled in the corners of her eyes; she made a gasping breath and wept, clinging to Lotivver (taller than her, now) like she was the only thing left in the universe. In a way, she was: the single stability, like a fixed point in the fabric of space and time, just as painful in her permanence. She would always be there, Culsu believed that. She _had_ to.

A cosmos without Lotivver scarcely bore thinking about.

* * *

Harolld and Cantrell had just settled down on the sofa with a bowl of toasted Weavegrass kernels and a plate of cheese and crackers. The curtains were drawn to prevent glare on the viewscreen, all work-related material had been ceremonially locked in the office, and the qualifying rounds of the Pandorica VII Organised Wrestling Association championship were about to start when a Gallifreyan timeship materialised in their kitchen.

"Lotivver!" Cantrell cried as she stepped out of what looked like a bookshelf if bookshelves made massive wheezing noises like dying whales. "And little Loki!" She picked her granddaughter up, spinning her around and making her giggle.

"Where's Culsu?" Harolld asked.

"She'll be out in a second, she needed to get something," Lotivver said. It was easier to smile than she'd expected, seeing her family again. "Oh, and she regenerated. Don't stare."

The bookshelf opened again, and a woman Cantrell had never seen before stepped out with a quick smile, closing the door behind her and taking Lotivver's hand. Lotivver nuzzled her and kissed her forehead briefly, so Cantrell assumed this was Culsu's new body. Otherwise her daughter had a bit of explaining to do.

"Culsu, these are my parents again," Lotivver said brightly. "Parents, Culsu."

"Yes, Lotivver, I know who your parents are. One doesn't generally forget the people one did _manual labour_ with," Culsu said.

"You're a terrible renegade," Lotivver informed her.

Harolld looked concerned. "Renegade? Come again?"

"_It was an accident_," Culsu emphasised.

Lotivver's lips twitched as she put an arm around her wife's waist, squeezing her gently. "It was," she assured them both. "She didn't _mean_ to marry a casteless alien, preempt an official House decision in order to Loom a half-breed daughter, take a timeship without _technically_ breaking any laws but without getting official clearance either, leave Gallifrey without permission…"

Culsu swatted her, and Lotivver laughed.

"Have you been getting my daughter into trouble, young lady?" Harolld said in a voice that would have been stern if he hadn't been suppressing a grin at their lighthearted banter. Cantrell could feel a warm sense of approval from him, and returned it. It was good to see their daughter like this, happy and in love. And their beautiful Loki didn't hurt matters either.

"No, sir," said Culsu smilingly. "We only broke the Non-Interference Policy once, and it was to fulfill a Closed Timelike Curve."

"What, so the sanctity of the Web of Time overrules one of the most basic tenants of Time Lord society?" asked Lotivver. "That's good to know."

Harolld shrugged. "Well, sit down," he told them. "Plenty of space. Have some crackers!" Loki cheered delightedly and dove into the Weavegrass puffs, and Lotivver predictably rolled her eyes but still pulled her wife down next to her—well, on top of her, mostly, but they were young and in love and all the better for them. And that was, for the most part, it.

It was a bit difficult adjusting to Culsu's new form; perhaps Cantrell was old-fashioned but she was rather used to people keeping the same face for the entirety of her acquaintance with them. Still, the Gallifreyan—the _Time Lord_ now, she realised, and wasn't _that_ moving up in the world for their little girl—was surprisingly quick to put her at ease. They looked… good together, her and Lotivver. She'd shed the heavy, discomfiting robes she'd been wearing last time, was dressed almost in Vinvocci style, though the trousers were loose and flowing and made of what looked like an impractically soft material. But her loose curls were much more organic, less harsh than the straight black crew-cut of her younger days, and even as tight-wound and worried as she looked she seemed to smile easier, relax more willingly against Lotivver. And her dark, forest-brown skin was softer and more natural, wound through Lotivver's dappled-green fingers.

She didn't really understand much about the world they'd chosen as their own. But she understood the way they looked at each other when they thought no one was watching, and the unadulterated happiness they shared with their daughter when she laughed, and that was all Cantrell really needed to know.

There was something worrying them, she guessed that much. She knew her daughter—even if she'd spent decades on Gallifrey, she'd still spent more time here, with her mum and dad—and how she acted when she was hiding something. Watching them now she was reminded of when Lotivver was 25 and had come out to them, terrified they'd turn her away. It hurt that they didn't feel like they could discuss it, but she was sure it would happen in time. She hugged them all the harder.

"How long are you staying?" she asked.

Culsu made a face that might be some distant relative of a smile. "Just today." She looked over at Lotivver. "Are you sure you don't want to stay here?"

"I'm not going to leave you, Culsu," Lotivver said, like this was a tired argument. "I'm never going to leave you."

Culsu smiled sadly; Cantrell felt like she was intruding on something intensely personal. "My Centurian," she said.

Lotivver, Cantrell realised with a start, was crying. She brushed Culsu's unruly hair out of her face like a reflex, fingers hesitating along her cheeks. She looked like she was going to say something, swallowed, and shook her head with a choking laugh before pulling her wife against her and kissing her like she would never get another chance.

When they broke apart, hugs were exchanged amongst the odd little family, with Loki trying her best to make a sudden metamorphosis into a monkey, latching onto arms and legs and hanging on with all her might.

"Take care of my daughter," Harolld said.

"I will," Culsu promised, nodding firmly before stepping through the bookshelf's impossible door behind her wife and child. The door closed, and the shelf phased out of reality with a wheezing groan.

"Oh, what's this?" said Cantrell a moment later. There was a thick envelope left on the counter, their names written on the front with the exactness of someone not quite enough used to the shape of the letters to get lazy in the formation of them. She broke the seal of it and pulled out the contents: a photograph and pages of neurotically-folded paper.

The photograph showed the three of them—Culsu in her previous body and heavy Gallifreyan robes—smiling in front of a glass pane, glittering crystal waterfalls in the background. Harolld peered over her shoulder to look at it, smiling.

"What does the letter say?" he asked.

She unfolded the papers and stared down at the words written on them in shock. The first time they had met their daughter's love interest, they'd talked about theories of supersymmetry for hours; Culsu had only expanded a bit on their own thoughts, never offering up her own.

They were pages of notes, outlining the mechanisms of supersymmetry breaking, the stabilisation of the electroweak scale, the condensation of tachyonic fields, neutrino mass… Priceless knowledge from a society loath to give up their secrets.

_P.S: Protons are inherently stable and causality exists in 11 dimensions._ She snorted. Still hadn't lost that Gallifreyan condescension, then. She ran her fingertips over the pages of notes, scribbled diagrams and equations… it was awe-inspiring, that this kind of knowledge was _commonplace_ to anyone. This was… _everything._

A particularly messy scribble on the very bottom of the last page caught her eye. It was barely comprehensible, an anguished afterthought.

_P.P.S: Forgive me._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: The Remembrance of Days**

"And you're certain you programmed the coordinates properly?"

Culsu sighed from the wardrobe. "With every possible safety," she assured her for the fourth time. "We even ran a materialisation simulation. We're going to end up exactly where our orders say we're expected. No surprises."

"Don't _say_ that," Lotivver moaned, twisting a scarlet pillowcase anxiously in her hands. "You're going to jinx it and end up fifty miles off-course in the middle of an Auton battle fleet or something…!"

"Lotivver," Culsu said firmly, and Lotivver took a deep breath, trying to control her panic. "Granny knows what she's doing, she's never landed us anywhere dangerous. If the Autons were getting within fifty miles of the Gallifreyan front lines we'd all be dead already, and anyway I'm not going anywhere near our perimeters. New arrivals materialise inside the lines for orders. The first jump will be safe."

_But what about the second jump?_ Lotivver thought. _Or the third, or the fourth, or the sixtieth…_

"Just be _careful,"_ she pleaded.

"I will. I promise." Culsu was unbearably calm.

"How _can_ you?"

Culsu smirked. Her smile in this regeneration was beautiful. "Time Lord."

Lotivver didn't know whether to laugh, cry, kiss her or beat her over the head with a rubbish bin, so she compromised by making a strange strangled sound that made Culsu look incredibly concerned for her health. Even after all this time she was always vaguely concerned about anything that involved lungs.

"You'll need more underthings," Lotivver told her in lieu of the thousand other things that needed to be said.

Loki scurried out of her corner, darting over to Culsu's dresser and pulling open the bottom drawer. "I'll get it!" she cried helpfully.

"Loki," Culsu said with no small amount of alarm, "Careful, those are…"

"Oops."

"...folded already." Lotivver expected a long-suffering sigh, and was surprised when Culsu gave their daughter a warm, wavering smile instead. "That's all right. Bring them over here and we'll get them folded again."

"Culsu," Lotivver told her quietly. "You don't have time."

She saw the flash of pain on her wife's face and regretted the reminder. "I still have a few millispans," Culsu said with forced cheerfulness. "Come here, Loki, we'll get those sorted out."

"It'll be hard for Granny to land you," said Lotivver as the two of them dove into the pile of assorted underthings, Culsu showing Loki how to fold them with a smile and countless words of encouragement, like she wasn't about to leave for the most deadly war zone in the universe. "She really doesn't like putting any of us in danger."

"What makes you think I'll be in danger?" said Culsu after a short pause.

"Culsu." _Don't. _

Culsu bit her lip. "Granny knows what we have to do. She'll manage."

"What happens if she hides too well again and you can't find her?"

"The chameleon circuit is disabled, there's no use for it in a war zone; that power's been redirected to shielding and… other things." Weaponry, no doubt. Culsu had refused to take a battle timeship, so Granny had been retrofitted after a great deal of negotiation and a not inconsiderable number of threats.

"But what if—"

_I'll be fine._

_You don't know that, you _can't _know that!_

_Loki needs to. Look at her, Lotivver. She needs to know I'm coming back._

Lotivver swallowed. It was difficult and painful, but she managed. "All right," she whispered. "All right." Clearing her throat, she asked, "Is there anything else you need?"

"I know something!" Loki yelled, leaping to her feet and dashing out of the room.

"Be careful on the stairs!" Lotivver called after her. A muted shriek from one of Culsu's Cousins suggested that Loki hadn't heard her.

There was silence for a few long, strained moments. Finally, Culsu shifted.

"Well." She hesitated, reaching for the ominous package on her dresser that they'd been trying extremely hard to pretend wasn't there. "I guess I should… no point in not being ready." She placed her hand on the rough-hewn fabric before snatching it back like the package might bite her. Lotivver could feel nausea and fear rolling off her in waves before they were joined by a sudden spike of alarm and Culsu's shields snapped into place, cutting off the flow of emotion.

The moment of vulnerability seemed to galvanise her; she pulled the drawstring sharply, letting the coarse flaps fall open, and began methodically arranging the contents.

She didn't look at Lotivver.

Lotivver had seen forms of Gallifreyan armour before; it was hard not to in the Citadel, with guards at every corner. But this wasn't the pretentious, largely ceremonial armour of the Chancellory Guard. This looked lethal and dangerous, dark red like clotted blood, interlocking plates connected by a flexible protective material. Culsu fiddled with the straps in silence until Lotivver couldn't stand it any longer.

"Let me," she said softly as Culsu struggled with the straps on a pair of bracers. As advanced as Gallifrey was, she'd have thought they'd be able to make their armour easy to put on, but on the other hand she'd studied 10000 spans of Gallifreyan history and not once in that time had they been involved in a proper war, unless you counted that incident with the Sontarans, and that was so small-scale as to be irrelevant. So maybe it made sense their armour wasn't entirely streamlined, or sentient—apparently it _was_ telepathic, when it was activated, but Culsu had said something about Block Transfer Computations and plasmic shells and Lotivver had stopped trying to follow her lecture by that point. For the best, maybe, because as much as Culsu trusted it, Lotivver didn't think she'd be able to sleep knowing her wife was wearing armour made of maths.

At least it felt substantial, had weight and sturdiness in Lotivver's hands without being heavy, or clunky like the Guard. Her hands trembled as she threaded the second bracer's fastenings into place; the strap ended up far too loose, and she blinked the hot prickling impatiently out of her eyes and redid it.

"Lotivver…?"

"I'm fine," she said, more harshly than she intended. She couldn't look Culsu in the eye. She _couldn't._ If she saw everything her wife was trying to hide she'd never be able to control herself.

She felt Culsu restraining herself. "Lotivver," she tried again. Gentle fingers brushed over the back of the Vinvocci's hand—she hadn't put the gloves on, and Lotivver realised belatedly that they were just going to have to take the bracers off again, she'd missed the order somehow—and Lotivver felt the faint beginnings of a mental bond before the door flew open and Culsu leapt back with a start.

"I found them!" Loki exclaimed happily, jumping up onto the bed next to Lotivver.

"So you did!" Culsu told her, looking intensely confused until she realised that the fuzzy wad her daughter was holding out was meant as an offering. "How… how could I forget my, um…"

"Fuzzy socks!" Loki told her, her young face incredibly serious. "Otherwise your feet'll get cold, mummy."

A myriad of emotions wrestled for dominance on Culsu's face, all of them steeped in pain, and it was enough to make Loki's helpful optimism falter, enough to make her hesitate and shrink back.

"Thanks, Loki," said Culsu weakly, crouching down to her level to wink at her and take the rolled-up socks out of her hand. "I… thank you very much."

Loki jumped up and hugged her, and Culsu's face contorted in a much shallower kind of pain as her daughter did her best to stab her in the throat. "OW! It was very thoughtful of you," she squeaked.

Loki mercifully removed her spikes from the vicinity of her mother's jugular. Culsu placed her carefully on the ground, and not even Time Lord shielding could completely block her overwhelming despair at the sight of the daughter she was leaving.

Lotivver couldn't think about it, she couldn't, she couldn't _think_ about it because as much pain as Culsu was in at the thought of leaving it was nothing compared to being left behind.

"Come here," she said shakily, hefting a molded breastplate that felt far, far too thin to be Culsu's lifeline. "Let me… let me get this last…"

There was only so much control a single Vinvocci could be expected to have. Despite Herculean efforts to the contrary there were tears swimming in front of her eyes, blurring her vision so she could barely tell where Culsu stopped and her armour began, let alone which slot went into which tab. Even if she'd been able to see them, her hands were shaking so badly she couldn't even grip a flat, sturdy strip of material.

She took a gasping, ragged breath and Culsu put her arms around her. She put her head on her wife's shoulder, she wept. Culsu was the only thing that felt _solid_; she was everpresent and immortal and would protect them until the end of Time, she _would, _she'd _promised_.

Except sometimes there were promises you couldn't keep, and nothing made any sense anymore, and they were supposed to have had so much more time...

* * *

The idea of calling a TT Capsule a "TARDIS" made Culsu feel vaguely nauseous. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. What did that even _mean_? Codimension, maybe, if they had to restrict themselves to _A Loomling's First Book of Practical Mathematics_' terminology for some reason, but relative dimension had nothing at all to do with it, and why was Time "in" space? It sounded like a title thought up by someone who'd never so much as heard of transcendental engineering.

"Ma'am," the technician said placatingly. Culsu bristled. She was in no mood to be placated by the same technician who thought she should decommission her bonded TT Capsule and replace her with a lobotomised, bastardised _battle TARDIS_ and had spent the better part of a millispan trying to convince her of the fact. "It's an order from the High Council, if you won't take a new TARDIS this one has to be retrofit for war. You've got no proper defenses, you'll just be offering it up as cannon fodder otherwise—"

"_Her,"_ Culsu hissed, making no effort to block the cold fury. "Show some respect, she's not one of your abominations. And she can _hear_ you." She couldn't really, at least not in the general sense of the word, but Granny was still bonded to Culsu however little the Council might like it, and she would feel the blistering insult all the same. Struck by a sudden foreboding, Culsu risked dropping her shields in order to let the full force of her anger out at the frustratingly un-terrified technician. "If you so much as _think_ about going near her telepathic circuits, if you tamper with them at all, if you _touch_ a single wire that's not directly related to _exactly_ the alterations on these blueprints, I will know about it and I will see you fired and on the front lines before you have a chance to regret being Loomed."

The technician sighed. "Yes, ma'am, you insulted my heritage earlier. Now, if you'll please let me do my job…"

"It's _not_ your job, it's _my_ job; she's bonded to me and I'm fully qualified to retrofit her myself. I take responsibility."

"Yes, ma'am," he said patiently, "But _I_ am the one who will lose _my_ job when my superiors out I let a renegade retrofit their own bonded TARDIS for _war_."

"_Renegade—!_"

The technician was implacable. "Oh, I'm sorry, are you an Exile? I don't have record of it, but you know how it is in a war…"

"I'm neither!" Culsu hissed. "I am a Time Lord from the House of Oakdown and I _have _been and shall_ always _be loyal to Gallifrey."

The technician stared at her for a moment. "You're wearing trousers," he said. "You're either a Shobogan or a renegade, and last I heard, they didn't give Shobogans TARDISes." He looked down at his datapad. "Although apparently they never gave one to you, either."

"I bonded with her completely legally," Culsu protested.

The technician was sceptical. "Nobody ever thought to pass laws against what _you _did."

"I asked her, and she said yes," Culsu informed him. Her voice could have cracked ice. "It _shouldn't_ be illegal."

He looked at her for a full microspan.

"Well," he said dryly. "How silly of me to think you were a renegade."

* * *

_Lord Cardinal, while I understand the consequences of my actions in leaving Gallifrey, I _did not_ defect. My support remains wholly with the House Military, even though you're all _liars_ who wear stupid hats—_

Culsu sighed. _Lord Cardinal,_ she began again, _my allegiance shall always lie with Gallifrey. It was not my intention to defect or suggest that I might do, but to get my wife and daughter away from this _founders-forsaken _culture—_

Maybe not.

She adjusted her sleeves anxiously. There _had_ to be a good way to word this. _My Lord Cardinal—_

That was when she ran face-first into him.

Culsu's startled yelp was cut off by an angry "_Do watch where you're going!"_ as she stumbled back, disoriented.

"Cardinal," she stammered.

He sniffed. "Clearly. And I suppose _you're _the one who's been pacing up and down the corridor, thinking too hard and giving everyone a headache?"

Culsu tried to keep her wince mostly internal. Close to three spans with no telepaths around except for her family had left her shields haphazard at best. She'd need to fix that as soon as possible. "...Probably, sir."

"Mmm." His eyes flickered to the insignia on her robes (she'd changed into them for this meeting; they might have felt uncomfortable but she knew better than to speak to the Prydonian Cardinal dressed like a Shobogan). "Oakdown," he said dismissively. "Culsu, I suppose?"

"Yes, Cardinal."

He exhaled in a way that might have been a laugh. "I don't know why they haven't discontinued your Loom yet," he said. "It's obviously unstable, all it seems to manage is renegades and half-breeds."

Culsu bit her tongue and slammed down her mental shields in an attempt to contain a sudden and powerful urge to break her Cardinal's nose. If his smirk was anything to go by, she hadn't succeeded very well.

"Sir," she ground out. "I was told to speak to you for my assignment."

"Obviously." He waved her off, handing her a scarlet envelope with a look of vague distaste. "It's about time your sort started making yourselves useful. Thank Rassilon the re-Looming edict wasn't passed by the Council. The _last_ thing we need is renegades impervious to harm. That Cousin of yours and his… friend, especially."

"The Master is not my Cousin," Culsu hissed. "All ties to House Oakdown were cut when he became renegade."

"If that's Oakdown policy, you should probably find different robes," said the Cardinal. "The two of you will have something to commiserate about while you're on the front lines."

Culsu was certain he could sense her jolt of shock and terror, and was very careful to block the rush of hatred when he didn't even react to it. She tore open the envelope, flicking a cursory glance over the contents.

"You can't do that," she protested, trying to fight back the panic in her voice. "I'm a TT Capsule engineer, not a warrior."

"It is the opinion of the Council," the Cardinal said condescendingly, "That all recalled renegades, in light of their experience in the wider universe, are better suited for higher-risk combat zones than—"

"Cannon fodder, you mean," Culsu snapped. "Sir, you _can't do this,_ I've never even touched a staser in my life, I'll be completely useless on the front lines… Granny was ready to _retire_ when I met her…"

"If you have doubts about your TARDIS' suitability in battle, I can promise our technicians know what they're doing. You're also welcome to reconsider your decision to accept a modified battle TARDIS, of course."

"I do not," Culsu bit out, "have doubts about my TARDIS' suitability. I do not have a_ TARDIS_. I have a TT Capsule who is perfectly competent and a very specific skill set that could be extremely helpful to the war effort, but not as some _Omega_ _analogue_."

She felt a brief flicker of anger from the Cardinal. "If you expected to be given some comfortable station far away from the fighting where you could run home to your _family _whenever you wanted, you were badly mistaken," he said warningly. "There _are_ no safe stations anymore, everyone is required to actively contribute to the war effort. You, specifically, are a renegade, and as such your assignment has already been decided. You may inform your company leader of your extremely helpful skill set when you arrive at your designated meeting point. _He_ can decide what to do with you."

"Lord Cardinal," Culsu said desperately. "I'm not asking for special treatment, you're making a _mistake,_ this is the worst possible use of resources—"

"If you wanted time for a more detailed assignment process," the Cardinal said with a pleasant smile, "You really ought to have remained on Gallifrey. You would have received much more cooperation. But look on the bright side," he continued, and Culsu had never wanted to kill someone more in her life. "You'll be back among your own Chapter, fighting like an honest Gallifreyan again. If, as you claim, that has always been your intent, there will never be a better chance to prove that your loyalties are above corruption. Good day, Oakdown."

* * *

Loki made an uncertain sound in counterpoint to Lotivver's low, miserable sob. "Mama?" she asked, before wrapping her arms around them both. Lotivver gave a tiny moan, tightening her grip on Culsu's shoulders like she wanted to reach out to their daughter but couldn't find the strength to move.

Her pain echoed along their mental bond, humming like someone had plucked a harpstring between them. "It's all right, Loki," Culsu said. She tried to project as much reassurance as possible, for both their sakes; Lotivver was blocking everything out but her own pain, but Loki was still receptive, anxiously trying to cuddle up to her parents and have everything be all right again. Culsu was trying, as hard as she could, to convince her that one day everything would be. "It's all right. I think I need to talk to your mama for a little bit alone, though, okay?"

Loki nodded slowly, looking deeply worried. "Are you leaving?"

Culsu could feel the knot of fear behind the words, what Loki was really afraid of. "Not before I say goodbye," she promised. That, at least, was a promise she could keep. The entire combined might of the universe was not going to be enough to drag her away before she got the chance to say goodbye to her daughter.

"Okay," Loki whispered. She leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to Lotivver's temple before tiptoeing out of the room and, with some difficulty, pulling the door closed behind her.

For a few moments Culsu sat quietly and let Lotivver cry into her shoulder, running a hand along her side, tightening her arms ever so slightly to remind her that she was _there._ It was only when some of her tension had been cried out, when her hold on Culsu became more of a plea for comfort than a desperate cling, that she finally shifted. Lotivver squeezed reflexively at her lapels, but she wasn't trying to move away.

"Lotivver," she whispered, resting gentle fingertips at her temples. "Let me in. Please, love."

Lotivver didn't reply, but her mental barriers thinned to a translucency which could be slipped through, not so much like cracks as temporal fissures, bunches in the fabric of reality through which solid matter could be waded through. Her mental presence was contained mostly to the centremost parts of her mindspace, small and sad and afraid. Culsu wanted to coat her in peace and safety, in _warmth_, but she wasn't sure if she was capable of it, lacking those emotions in her own mind, a tumultuous, churning landscape, chaotic and off-kilter.

Lotivver's shields were thin and weak but locked down tightly around her core, instinctively curling closer to protect her, and Culsu didn't want to push against them for fear of hurting her more. She didn't abandon the gentle contact she'd made; if she couldn't fill Lotivver's mind with reassurance she could at least offer her love, that was the one thing she would always be able to give her, even now, when the world was falling apart.

Their minds, both of them, were too tumultuous to help one another, too frightened to do anything but feed each others' fear and Culsu hated feeling this helpless.

"I love you," she said weakly, brushing her fingers over Lotivver's face, dancing across her spines, settling along her neck with her thumbs rubbing circles just under her ears. "Shh… Please, Lotivver, I can't leave you like this…" Lotivver whispered something that Culsu didn't hear, but the impression of the words washed over both of their minds in a sad, lonely wave. _Don't leave me at all._

The ghost of a smile flickered on Culsu's face and she leant forward, touching her lips to Lotivver's. It was initially chaste, desperate but more to do with simple _touch_ than anything else. It was Lotivver who deepened the kiss, unexpectedly for both of them, Culsu thought; she turned into it reflexively, taking a trembling breath as she pressed closer and suddenly Culsu's hands were at her temples again and Lotivver was kissing her like the world was already burning around them.

There were flashes of colour behind her eyes; not actually colour but not quite sensations and they felt like colours, tasted like music, and Lotivver gasped quietly against her as they flickered between their minds. Culsu was shorter than her in this body and she was standing on her toes, one hand at her temple and the other at the back of her neck and she dragged Lotivver's head down to closer her level. She nipped lightly at Lotivver's lip.

Lotivver laughed; a weak, shaky sound but a laugh nonetheless, resting her forehead with great care against Culsu's. She was blinking hard, crying still but they were slow, hot tears and not the horrible gut-wrenching sobs of despair that hurt Culsu more than a sword to the gut, as she could personally confirm. She leaned in and nuzzled Lotivver's cheek gently, kissing the salt from her skin.

"I love you," she whispered again, but this time she smiled when she said it and Lotivver's sob was mostly a laugh as she kissed her again, and then again, deeper, and Lotivver released her vice grip on Culsu's lapels to link her fingers behind her wife's neck. And finally, _finally,_ that hard tight ball of sensitive shielding relaxed and Lotivver's mind touched hers fully and their love and fear and overwhelming _need_ matched with such intensity Culsu felt dizzy.

_Please,_ and the plea was wordless, an impression only but urgent and profound and Culsu didn't know which of them had sent it, their minds were merged so deeply. _Tell me you're here. Tell me you're still with me._

Maybe that said something, Culsu thought in the one tiny corner of her mind that wasn't clinging to her wife's presence like it was the only thing left in the universe. When it came down to it even Time Lords, in the face of utter destruction, could only manage that one tiny, simple wish. She inclined her head, touching their foreheads together, and she wrapped her arms tightly around Lotivver's waist—she was warm and solid and she was _there_, she was in her head and in her arms and maybe nothing could ever be the same again, after this, maybe there was nothing they could do, but they had each other and in that moment that was all Culsu cared about.

Lotivver hummed softly in agreement, letting her linked hands slip down to rest against Culsu's collarbone. She kissed her again, sending a wash of pure love across their shared mindscape, and Culsu thought with no small amount of spite that if anyone on the High Council had ever felt anything like it they would never have gotten into this war in the first place.

A flash of fond irritation. _Stop thinking about the High Council when we're trying to have sex._

_This isn't sex,_ Culsu argued, sending a tendril of colour into Lotivver's mind; Lotivver was never really sure of how to describe what was happening, even to herself. The colours didn't have names and they burnt in her synapses, nearly overloading the pleasure centres of her brain. It was almost, but not quite, like pain, and the tears that came into her eyes had nothing to do with sensation, but they weren't fear anymore either.

It wasn't possible to gasp mentally, as far as she knew, but the idea of it came well enough, a flash of pleasure and blindingly bright, impossible colours at the base of her brain and she couldn't piece together concepts for a moment. _Oh, no, of _course _not, how silly of me, _Lotivver thought, once she could. She didn't need to project it, not with Culsu as intermingled as she was in her mind. Similarly, Culsu barely had to concentrate on the skeptical image of a half-melted—

_Oh, no!_ Lotivver cringed away from her, but she was laughing genuinely and the bubbling silver happiness filling her mind made Culsu grin without even realising it, the most beautiful thing she'd ever felt. _I'd almost managed to finally forget that conversation._

_We've been married for the better part of ten spans,_ Culsu reminded her. _I think you can forgive us for an awkward first contact now._

_I am _never _forgiving you for that._

Culsu smirked, tightening her hold around Lotivver's waist and pulling her indecently close again, kissing her deeply. _Never?_

_Absolutely not._ Lotivver's breathing stuttered as Culsu brushed up against her pleasure centers._ I couldn't look my parents in the eye for the rest of the trip._

_Mmm._ Culsu knew her wife's mind, knew every neuron, every delicate patch of memory and emotion and sensation. She knew where she had to be gentle, send only the lightest of mental tendrils or risk hurting her; and she knew where Lotivver's mind opened to her reflexively, welcoming her touch and sighing happily at her presence.

"That's cheating," Lotivver breathed.

"Hush, you." _And do try to keep your shields up, love, I'm about to be incredibly distracting._

She tried to pretend her telepathic smugness wasn't tinged with pain, and Lotivver let her. She tried to hide her own overwhelming feelings of loneliness, of helplessness and sick worry behind internal shields, edging them to the side where Culsu wouldn't have to look.

Culsu was having none of it. If this was the last time she would be able to do this, to slip her hands under Lotivver's tunic and run them gently along her sides and feel her mind thrumming under the touch, to rest her forehead carefully under her wife's brow spikes (_they fit together perfectly in this incarnation, it wasn't fair, they were supposed to have had centuries at the very least like this) _and feel Lotivver's sharp gasps against her throat_,_ if this was it... she was going to do it right.

It was so easy now, almost second nature to map out Lotivver's mind and find the dark places, doubts and fears and anxieties and aching loss; and as she found them she drew them out, slowly, carefully, with tender whispers and delicate mental caresses until she could pour light and love and twinges of pleasure into their place. It wouldn't last, couldn't last, it was a hasty bandage at best but it was the only gift she could give.

_I love you,_ and this time it was beyond words.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: The Exile Assembly**

Culsu's grip on the door controls was white-knuckled and painful as they phased into the Vortex. The warm, sweet whispers of Loki's mind when she'd hugged her mummy goodbye were already fading, and she had to choke back the wave of despair; she'd _known_ she would hardly be able to maintain telepathic contact from Rassilon-knew-where in the universe but that didn't make it any easier feeling her daughter fading away. She squeezed her eyes shut and ignored Granny's concern. She was still an Oakdown. She would _not_ show up on the front lines of the war fighting back tears. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

Granny wheezed in distress. The retrofits would feel natural to her in time; at least that was the theory, that once she'd had a chance to incorporate them fully into her systems they would stop chafing. In the meantime, however, it was all the poor thing could do to resist the urge to throw them off. She didn't _want_ to be a war machine. She wanted to be a _home._

She certainly didn't feel like a home now. Culsu had at least managed to force enough technicalities down the technicians' throats that they'd left her nominally in charge of Granny's retrofitting—not that she'd felt terribly _in charge_ with a crew of suspicious-looking scarlet-robed Technicians glaring at her and sighing as they stood around making sure she didn't "try anything funny". But no amount of throwing her weight around could let her avoid the final stage of the process; a hard reset of all nonessential systems, stripping the aesthetic alterations back to factory settings and jettisoning all rooms and features not needed in a war zone, in order to allow the intensive additions full access to Granny's power.

The console room, which had been their home and their sanctuary for so long, was stark and white now, empty except for a rack next to the door that held several complicated-looking weapons. The roundels in the walls pulsed worriedly in response to Culsu's anguish. There was a tired brush against her mind, an attempt at consolation, but Granny was as stressed as she was and the only comforting effect it had was the reassurance that she wasn't alone in misery.

Culsu checked every readout on the console; it was just busywork, completely unnecessary now with the adjustments made in the retrofit. There was no chance of her going off course now.

(Technically, very technically, she _could_, but if that happened it would be because her destination never and no longer existed, and in that case she would have more problems on her hands than just being a century or a mile off.)

She continued running diagnostics checks for another microspan, staring resolutely at the levers and buttons on the console. There was no sofa, pull-out or otherwise, in the room. No horribly distasteful polka-dotted curtains. She didn't want the additional reminder that Lotivver and Loki weren't there, not in addition to the impossibly frail telepathic connection she had to them.

Granny tapped reluctantly at her mind as they approached their destination, ripping out of the Vortex in one long shriek of materialisation. Culsu bit her lip and patted the console. She missed the gentler, slower in-and-out fading from before the war upgrades. Granny didn't _like _rushing.

She wasted a few precious moments running an old rag over Granny's zig-zag plotter.

"All right," she said out loud. "Let's see where we are." She didn't use the manual control. She was a Time Lord, and she would face this war as a Time Lord.

Granny gave one last, whispering wheeze before quietly opening the doors for her.

They could have been on any backwater planet in the universe. There was nothing remotely interesting about their surroundings; a too-bright sky, white in the way skies turn white when they're overcast and gloomy but even the clouds don't have the energy to completely block the single, yellow sun, and instead spread the light across them like a piece of paper and make everyone on the surface miserable. The landscape (and calling it that was, in Culsu's opinion, being generous) was harsh and unremarkable, faded sandstone with no cover or vegetation to speak of and no notable features aside from the occasional blocky cliff face or pile of rubble.

She could tell at a glance that in the summer, if this planet or moon or… whatever sort of celestial body it was… had a summer, this place would be hot and arid and utterly inhospitable. As it was it was equally unpleasant, just cold and windy instead. On the bright side, there was nobody shooting at her for the moment. She glanced back at Granny on instinct, to memorise and smile over whatever clever disguise she'd worked up this time. The sight of the line of default cement-grey rectangular cabinets that were the BTC-created outer plasmic shells of TT Capsules (or rather, she thought with a mental sneer, _TARDISes_) made her feel ill. These were renegades, didn't they have some sort of emotional connection to their own TT Capsules? How could they let them be replaced by soulless war-bred timeships?

She turned to pat Granny affectionately, but rather than being met with the sight of some pillar of rock or whatever else she'd decided to take the image of, Granny had the same blocky shell as all the others.

Culsu was going to kill the technician who removed her chameleon circuit. Slowly.

* * *

"Took ya long enough."

Culsu was very emphatically not a renegade. She knew that because if she were a renegade, she'd not have had nearly as much trouble scaling the cliff face as she did. If the renegades had found it difficult, after all, they wouldn't have materialised at the base. But they _had_ materialised there, clustered together haphazardly, and she could dimly feel the hum of Gallifreyan minds _somewhere_ in, above or around this cliff which meant there _had_ to be some way up.

She was incredibly cold, her fingers were about to fall off, her hair wouldn't stop blowing in her face—it had come loose from its tight bun and somehow escaped from under her helmet—and as if that wasn't enough now there was an amused-looking renegade lying on the edge of the cliff and _smirking_ at her.

With no small amount of difficulty, she managed to find a new handhold and peer up at her. "Feel free to help me up."

The renegade's smirk turned into a full-fledged grin. "Think I'd rather watch," she said.

Culsu gritted her teeth and shifted one foot a few inches to the right. The lip of the cliff was just barely over an arm's length above her but there didn't appear to be any way to advance. She could feel not-particularly-friendly derision rolling off the renegade above her in waves.

"How did _you _get up?" she asked finally.

The renegade picked idly at her nails. "The stairs. Wha're ya _wearin',_ Newblood?"

"Armour," said Culsu, with a bit of trepidation. "Why, what do you all have?" These were, as far as she knew, state-of-the-art. "And what do you mean _stairs?"_

The renegade deigned to actually sit up—she'd been leaning back on her elbows, before—to show off the thin grey bracers on her arms. Without speaking, she pointed across the cliff to where the TT Capsules were left, and sure enough there were steps there, although they were more a ladder than a staircase.

"Oh." There was nothing she could really say to that.

"We were takin' bets on 'ow far ya would get without dyin'," the renegade said casually, flicking a pebble off the cliff. She had a strange accent, almost reminiscent of Lok's (a flicker of sadness, although she knew Lok was probably alive now; she'd not seen em in person since before ey'd left to fight in the War of before, and that was hard to forget) but with dropped consonants and longer, simplified vowels, and she noticed galeifs were left out altogether, the concepts implied rather than explicit. Cadonin, then, and _old_. At least nine thousand spans, probably closer to twelve.

"That's nice," Culsu muttered absently, trying with little success to look over her shoulder for a more secure foothold without losing her tenuous grip on the cliff face. "Does it still count if you give me a hand up?"

"Oh, I put _my _money on ya fallin' to yer death 'alfway up." The renegade's voice was disturbingly friendly. "But seeing as ya decided to let me down I've nothin' to lose by it now. Besides, Kajan's got an 'efty little sum riding on ya fallin' right around now and I can't _stand_ the nesh."

Figuring that was about as much reassurance as she was likely to get from this woman, Culsu pressed herself against the rock face and managed to creep one hand over her head without falling to her doom. The renegade rolled her eyes, leaning carelessly over the drop to grab Culsu's wrist. As she shifted the short, loose-fitting sleeves of whatever strange style of robes she was wearing fell away, revealing a coiled black dragon tattooed just above her elbow.

Culsu's hearts nearly stopped. She never had bothered to go back and put her gloves back on and the renegade wasn't wearing any, so the jolt of terrified adrenaline shot along their point of contact before she could think to stop it. The woman grinned dangerously, jerking Culsu's arm and throwing her off-balance so that the grip on her wrist was the only thing keeping her from falling. Culsu had to bite her tongue to keep from shrieking, but the next moment the renegade with the Shada tattoo had Culsu's collar gripped tight in her free hand and was pulling her up and over the ledge.

"N'en," said the renegade brightly once Culsu had found her footing.

"Hello to you too," Culsu muttered.

"If ya were tryin' to defect, there's better ways on doin' it," the renegade continued as though Culsu hadn't spoken.

"What, dying is defection now? In a war?"

"I meant escapin' up a cliff, but tha' too, I s'pose. We're not allowed dyin', that's just the fancy new soldiers."

"That seems a bit counterintuitive."

"It's _incentive,_" the renegade corrected. "Die, and we just get re-Loomed ussens, anyway."

Talking to the renegade was harder than trying to make sense of the ROO texts, for Omega's sake. At least the ROO texts didn't simplify the vowels down to less than 40 sounds.

She seemed more than a little bemused by Culsu as well. "Bit young to 'ave nettled enough people to end up 'ere, aren't ya? Wha'd ya _do_, blow up the Academy? Run off wiv the Chancellor's daughter? Wear the wrong colour shoes in public?"

"I married a Vinvocci translator, had a half-breed daughter with her on an official House Loom without permission and ran away with them in a semi-stolen TT Capsule," Culsu rattled off without pausing for breath.

"Other's _grave_, kid," the renegade said, very nearly impressed. She made a sound that would have been a laugh if it was a little less harsh and involved a little more of a smile as opposed to a baring of teeth.

"What did _you_ do?"

"Broke the First, Third, and Seventh. Well, more than tha', but those are my favourites. Wha', ya thought they had me out here for my looks? I can do things with worldlines tha'd make Omega _scraight_."

Culsu murmured with what she hoped came across as approval or really anything that wasn't horror. "So," she said after a nanospan, "what are we doing out here? The Cardinal wasn't particularly forthcoming."

"_We?_" The renegade snorted. "Group like this, there's no _we_, kid. 'Alf on us are only just out on Shada and the other 'alf want nothin' to do wiv us. Call us very rude names. Two on them mysteriously disappeared from the Web a few spans ago. Nah, we play our strengths and avoid each other as much as possible."

Culsu waited expectantly and the renegade gave a put-upon sigh.

"_Fine_. We're stationed 'ere because there's a Fixed Point we're s'posed to be protectin'." The idea of using her talents to _preserve_ the Web of Time appeared to cause her physical pain. "'Andful of bloody Cerulean wannabes are the only ones who take it seriously. Actin' like it's a _challenge_ to preserve one blasted Point. If the Council 'ad any sense they'd leave the lot on them 'ere where they can't get in the way. Went renegade to _'elp people_, ya know the sort. Wassocks."

"What about the rest of the outfit?"

"Most on the Shada crowd're combat runs. Thugs," she said distastefully. "No sense on style, great appreciation for spilt entrails. The rest are strategic; pitched battles, large-scale. The big names."

Culsu tried very hard not to think about what _the big names_ might be in a unit comprised of Shada inmates. "And me?" she squeaked.

The renegade flicked her eyes over Culsu doubtfully. "No idea. Cos actually _do_ anythin', Clouts?"

"Archemathics?" said Culsu uncertainly. "I punched the Doctor once."

The renegade cackled. "Girl after mine own hearts. Our illustrious _battlefield commander_ oughta like tha'. Or maybe not," she added, grinning. "'E's a touch possessive, tha' one. Oh, and there 'e is! 'Allo, commander," she sing-songed, sketching a mocking salute.

Culsu turned around, and her hearts dropped.

"Every day presents a new challenge to one's dignity," the man—their battlefield commander, apparently—sighed. His face wasn't the one she was used to seeing, but Oakdown blood was unmistakable. "Cabinet 453," the Master continued, "get back to your duties."

The renegade swept a bow that was just low enough to be sarcastic, tugging idly on one of Culsu's curls as she brushed past her—they were _stubborn_, starting to come back already no matter how hard she tried to straighten them—and Culsu caught a flash of her exasperation at anything that didn't involve a death toll in the hundreds at least. It was not a reassuring thought to have floating around her head while trying to stare down the Master.

Once Culsu's impromptu escort had sauntered away, the Master fixed his attention on her fully. She tried not to gulp.

"Well," he said. "It seems the standards of Oakdown's Loom have fallen considerably."

* * *

"If you are within the first 15 spans of regeneration, currently regenerating, or may regenerate before the transmat process has been completed, speak to a qualified surgeon before utilising the matter transference pad. The High Council of Gallifrey thanks you for your continued patience and cooperation."

Lotivver rubbed her temples.

"Welcome to the Gallifreyan Generational Preservation Initiative Evacuation Centre." The technician was an exhausted-looking Dromeian with a twitch in the corner of her eye and a smile that begged for the sweet release of death. "We thank you for your assistance in helping to make the evacuation process swift and convenient. Please place all metal belongings in the bins provided, as certain metals can interfere with the transmat process. When approaching the matter transfer pads, take your Loomlings firmly by the hand and follow closely all instructions given by Evacuation Centre officials…"

The entire line gave a groan of despair that was echoed in the technician's eyes as she perkily recited the same speech she had been giving for the past three spans.

"Omega's _tits_," groaned the teenager in front of them. "Not this again, someone give the lady a break. Or a rutting staser shot to the face, either way. Shooting people's wrong, kid," they added to the wide-eyed Loomling clutching their hand. "Until the High Council decides there's Daleks and Monans need killing, of course."

The Loomling looked worried. "But Eke," ey said seriously, "You said the High Council should all take their headdresses and shove 'em up their—"

"_Wotcher!"_ the Shobogan teenager exclaimed with almost as much manic cheerfulness as the Dromeian technician currently instructing the winding line of evacuees on the proper transmat pad loading procedure, clapping their hand over their sibling's mouth. "I'm Eke, this is Cavis, and you didn't hear anything about the Council."

Lotivver's lips twitched. "Lotivver," she said, "and this is my daughter, Loki."

"Are you Arcalian?" Cavis asked curiously, poking Loki's leftmost forehead spike. "'Cos of you're green. I dunno if they'll let you on here, if you're Arcalian. An' if you're Arcalian why're you wearing red? Red's Prydon."

"I'm Prydonian!" Loki said defensively. "I'm an Oakdown!"

Eke raised an eyebrow. "Oakdown, really?" they said. Lotivver began mentally preparing for the worst, but Eke only squatted down to Loki's level and winked. "Didn't know they made Chronarchs as little as you. Pleased to meetcha, cutie."

Loki giggled. "I like your hair."

Eke grinned, running a hand through their scarlet-dyed hair so that the natural golden blonde underneath peeked out. "I like yours too," they said. "Never really met an Oakdown properly before. We're Tracolix ourselves. Cavis, say hello. And stop poking her head, you nut. Little lady'll think we were raised by pigrats."

"Your _hair_ was raised by pigrats," Cavis muttered.

"Gel, kiddo. The word you're looking for is 'gel'."

Cavis stuck eir tongue out at them and Loki giggled again.

"Are you in a cult?" she asked with the innocent curiosity of children.

"_Loki!"_

Eke flicked a reassuring smile at Lotivver, but their eyes were almost serious as they ruffled Cavis' blonde curls. "Nah," they said softly. "Can't get mixed up in that kind of nasty vortisaur shite with this one to look out for."

"Loki," Lotivver warned her. "Be nice."

"Ah, don't mention it. She's a good kid," Eke said warmly, standing up so they were back on Lotivver's level as Cavis and Loki sat down on the ground and began discussing in great detail their life stories. Loki was just as interested in eir trousers as ey was in her green skin. "Nice to know the Time Lords haven't ruined that one, at least. Uh, no offense, ma'am," they added hastily.

"None taken, I think the same thing every day."

Eke glanced between them. "You're not Gallifreyan, yeah?"

Lotivver tried not to sigh. _Here we go._ "Vinvocci," she said curtly. "Legally Gallifreyan by marriage."

Eke nodded thoughtfully.

"She's one hell of a tiny thing to have put so much Venusian ginger up the Council's collective arse," they said finally.

Lotivver choked on an indecently loud laugh and the teenager grinned.

"So it _was _you that caused all that trouble with the Looms, then?" Eke asked as the line began, finally, to move forward, picking up Cavis and putting em on their hip.

Lotivver nodded, taking Loki firmly by the hand.

"Is Lady President Romana nice? She seems nice. Well, you know, when she's not being possessed by ancient, power-mad forces of evil. Running theme with the niceish renegades? What with Zagreus and all."

_Culsu, if you get possessed by a Matrix ghost I swear I will kill you,_ Lotivver thought quickly.

"_Is_ the Doctor nice?" said Eke vacantly.

"He gave Loki candy and then my wife punched him in the face," Lotivver confessed. "I'm not really certain, to be honest. But if the rumours are true that evacuating the children was the Doctor's idea I'm not saying a word against him."

"_Sepulchasm_," Eke breathed. "You've met him? And, like, actually survived? I mean, I'm fond of him and all, I'm fond of anybody who doesn't praise the light that shines from Rassilon's arse, but I don't think I'd ever want to _meet_ him. Did he blow up the planet you were on?"

Before Lotivver could think of an appropriate response to this, they were interrupted by a technician snapping his fingers impatiently in front of their faces.

"You two there," he barked at the Shobogans. "third place, second row from the left. Ma'am, take your Loomling to the last position in the rightmost row. _Quickly_, if you don't mind. You've all observed proper screening procedures?"

"We placed our metal belongings in the bins provided," Loki said solemnly.

"Last position, rightmost row, move along please..."

Eke gave their good-natured grin and held up a hand in a casual wave to Lotivver as they took their positions on the transmat.

"Please remain as still as possible," the harried-looking technician instructed them before flipping an important-looking switch.

There was an odd tingling, dissolving feeling; not quite painful, but distinctly unpleasant and the kind of thing that felt like it _ought_ to be painful. But then it was over, and a crowded outdoor arena flickered into place.

It was filled with jostling Gallifreyans in a rainbow of Chapter colours, hurrying about following orientation officials with large number placards to stations around the square labelled 'HOUSING ASSIGNMENTS' and 'RATION BOOKLETS' and 'CHECK-IN' and 'EDUCATIONAL REGISTRY'. It was all rather more well-organised and much less pretentious than Lotivver would normally have expected from Gallifrey, though as she looked closer she could see that most everything was being run by members of the Guard or the House Military. She figured the lack of Time Lords involved probably had something to do with the efficiency.

A brisk young soldier in light armour approached as their group was stepping off the transmat. "That's right," he called, with a cheerfulness that was far more genuine and much less exhausted than that of the evacuation centre. "Let's try to clear the transmats fast enough that the next group won't have to wait! Excellent job—do you need a hand in the back, sir? No? Good, good. Can everyone hear me?" There was a disjointed chorus of affirmation, and the young guard winked. "No need to sound so glum about it, I promise you'll be rid of me soon."

There was a lighthearted whoop from the back of the crowd, and Lotivver was fairly certain she knew exactly who had given it.

The soldier laughed. "There we go. Now, as I get you all set up please remember that this is a military installation; there will be certain rules and regulations that you will be expected to follow, and which will be explained to you later when you've had a chance to settle in. We realise some of them may be inconvenient at times, but they _are_ intended to keep you and your children safe. I know things are rough right now," he said kindly. "I know a lot of you are going to be afraid. But I promise you, as long as you let the Military and the Guard do our jobs and help us by following the regulations, this is the safest place on all of Gallifrey. Think you can do that for me?" Another chorus of 'yes'es. "Think you can at least do it better than the Arcalians?" The affirmative was much stronger this time.

"That's what I like to hear from my crowd!" The soldier exclaimed. "Loomlings and guardians of Prydon… welcome to Arcadia."

* * *

"Are ya," began Shada calmly, and stopped. Culsu took that as a hint and unravelled her consciousness from the Web.

"Are ya _tryin' _to get us killed, ya sket?" the renegade continued eventually, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her voice wasn't raised, but then, it didn't have to be; Shada/Cabinet 453 inspired fear perfectly well without straining her vocal chords. Considering what she'd done to end up in her namesake, that was hardly a stretch. One of the other renegades, a severe-looking woman called Ruath, had told Culsu the story, flashing a sharp-toothed grin at her stunned reaction.

"I don't know what a sket is," Culsu replied.

Shada groaned. "Look," she said, the deathly calm tinted now with not a small portion of exasperation, "it's not tha' 'ard. Ya need to stop thinkin' on the Web as five-dimensional. It's not. Actin' like it is won't do nothin' but get ya fast in some antimatter universe, and Visionaries know we don't need another Omega on our 'ands."

"But _I'm _five-dimensional!"

"No ya aren't, yer _body_ is. Just…" She waved a hand vaguely, and Culsu noticed in morbid fascination that it was phasing out of the physical as she did it. Oldbloods were disconcerting to begin with, with their almost Pythian-esque appearances and strange neurochemistry, and Shada was more so than average. Culsu was half-expecting her to sprout tentacles. "Ignore it. It's a lie, anyway. Nothin' more'n equations."

"Right." Culsu was rather impressed that her voice only shook a little. It was not comforting to be in the presence of someone who considered the destruction of the universe something to be done in one's spare time with a bit of maths and inspiration. "Of course. Bodies aren't real and I'm a pandimensional being of pure thought with no limits to my abilities. Silly me, thinking the Laws of Time weren't just well-meant suggestions_._"

Shada scoffed. "Wha' _else_ would they be? We _created_ them, Clouts."

_Aaaand she's actually properly insane,_ Culsu thought with no small amount of resignation.

_No kidding,_ said her inner voice of reason, which sounded just enough like Lotivver to hurt.

"Next time ya think sommat like tha', feel free to act'ly _shield_ it," said Shada. She seemed more amused than offended, thankfully. Culsu had promised Lotivver she'd come back.

(Although, what would happen if she were erased from the Web? Loki was a Time-sensitive in her own right, she wouldn't disappear; Lotivver would be in a Gallifreyan shelter with a daughter whose mother she didn't remember…)

"Sorry."

Shada waved a hand that didn't get even a _bit_ transparent this time and made a noncommittal sound. "If ya are done tryin' to shatter chronology, I'm gettin' sommat to eat." She fixed Culsu with an unnerving glare. "Don't try anythin' 'til I come back."

Culsu slumped dejectedly against the nearest rock, massaging her temples as Shada stalked out of their section of cave, muttering about Kajan eating all the good rations and upstart Newbloods with pretentious brain chemistry and no _style _in their universe-destroying antics.

"Mind yer bloody step!" she snapped from just outside the door, and Culsu looked up, startled and concerned as to what exactly she'd done this time.

"Sorry!" answered a stunningly familiar voice. "Didn't see you—"

He was cut off by a string of mostly-incoherent curses, but it only lasted for a few moments before Shada cursed his biodonors and stormed off to find food. Culsu was still staring at the door; she knew what she'd heard and she knew what she was feeling now, the warm hum of a mind that she _knew_ but that was impossible, there was no possible way he could be here, she'd finally cracked.

"Cthulhu?" Patroklos edged around the door, glancing over his shoulder nervously. "Was it just me or did she have…?"

Culsu ignored his shell-shocked gesturing at his arm, launching herself across the empty space and hugging him tightly.

"Ow," he said. She rolled her eyes, took off her helmet and hugged him again. The others could mock her armor all they wanted; she didn't care how hot or annoying the stuff was to wear, she was keeping it _on_. She had no intention of an afterlife spent with the image of Lotivver glaring at her for all eternity.

"Big baby," she muttered, and was shocked to find herself blinking back tears. She and her Cousin had never been what she'd call _close_, not really; but they'd been friends, he'd always _been _there for her, supported her, he'd spoken out when she'd almost been disowned over Lotivver, he'd broken the tension and almost singlehandedly stopped them from baying for Loki's blood, even gotten the little Loomling her copy of _Every Gallifreyan Child's Pop-Up Book of Nasty Creatures from Other Dimensions_.

There'd been nothing dramatic about it, no lifelong bond—he was older than her, had graduated the Academy before she'd even been accepted, he was lazy and laid-back and content to live his life that way and preferred to look after his littler Cousins from a distance and when it was convenient. But he'd _been_ there, enough that he was the first one she thought to call in an emergency, the one she'd gone to first when Lotivver had for some insane reason agreed to marry her. She hoped he and Chandvoroghantreludar were doing well. Lotivver had no idea why she'd insisted on inviting the young man to their wedding, but she'd had a _feeling._

It was really, really good to see him again.

"What are you _doing_ here?"

"Spying for the Council," he answered casually. He grinned, then laughed at her horrified expression. "What? I had to have _some_ excuse to get all the way out here. You can help me pull reports out of my arse at the last minute. It'll be just like old times."

"_Patroklos!_"

He sighed, looking almost marginally serious. "Hey," he pointed out. "It's better than letting them send an _actual_ spy. Officially I'm just here to work as a general assistant. Put together everyone's reports and send them all off together. Nice and tidy, Capitoline style." He held his arms out invitingly, and she rolled her eyes as she buried her face in his chest again. "Unofficially, Lotivver said if I didn't keep you safe she'd stab me with her head."

Culsu's head snapped up eagerly. "How is she?" she asked in a rush. "Is Loki all right? No one's been treating them badly, have they? They're safe?"

"They were five spans ago, at least," Patroklos said with a smile that was more understanding than Culsu was used to seeing from him. "_Millispans,_ sorry, I know how you love your grammar. Safe and happy, Lotivver looks great. Lucky," he said with a wink. "And Loki's getting big. She made friends with a Shobogan."

Culsu stared at him. "_How?"_

"No one told you?" Patroklos looked taken-aback. "They evacuated the Time Tots from the Capitol. Any pre-war-regulations Loomlings, the ones who aren't physically mature enough to be soldiers. Set up a whole fortress facility on Arcadia, full compliments of Guards and Military, more Time Trenches than you can count. There's even a school; Asedifeghejekal is teaching there. Caste lines dissolved a bit, though, since it's mostly the lower castes who Loom physically-immature Time Tots anyway. I was stationed there for a month or so. Left once I was sure they'd settled in." He ruffled her curly hair. "You needed me more, Cthulhu."

Culsu wanted to hug him again. "They're safe? Really?"

"Yeah, psycho." He smiled. "They're safe."

"Oy, Clouts!"

Culsu didn't groan, and was proud of that. Shada had something that looked like it might once have been edible in hand—some kind of bread? It was glowing slightly (Oldbloods were _weird_).

"Yeah?"

"Ditch the Council nark and get yer arse back in the Web. We've got a timeline to fold over some _brave little Dalek battleships_."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: The Eradication of the Daleks**

* * *

Loki shrieked, running for her life under a burnt-orange sky with a shapeless black mass thrashing wildly in pursuit.

"_Loki!"_ Cavis wailed from under their Dromeian neighbour's bedsheet. "Come back, I'm _stuck!"_

Loki sighed in a manner eerily reminiscent of her mother, doubling back and wrestling with the charcoal-black oversheet. "Stop wiggling!" she said sternly. "_Ow! _You _kicked _me!_"_

"What in _the name of Rassilon_ is going on out here?"

Cavis suddenly stopped struggling.

"Uh-oh," ey whispered.

"Hi, Aperi!" Loki said cheerfully.

Aperi sighed, closing ver eyes. "Hello, Loki. I'll wager a guess it's Cavis under there?"

"'M stuck," Cavis mumbled.

The Merchant laughed, squatting down to help em out from under the sheet. "Do I want to know how you got this?" ve asked once Cavis was visible, ver eyebrow raised.

"You left it on the line!" Loki giggled.

Aperi sighed again.

"What are you even _doing _with it?" ve asked. "I know for a fact you have your _own _bedsheets."

"But ours are red!"

"And?" "Outer space is _black,_" Cavis explained slowly.

"I see. And what do you need outer space for?"

"We're building a TARDIS!" ey exclaimed.

"We're building a TT Capsule," Loki chirped at the same time.

"We're using the boxes the ration packs come in," Cavis explained happily. "'Cept for Loki says real TARDISes are dimension-y transdental. I bet ours is better though!"

"Not better than Granny," Loki insisted loyally. "But close! My mummy's an Archemathetititi—she does maths that grow timeships!" she explained, wide-eyed, to Aperi. "She makes the very _best_ TT Capsules ever!"

Aperi smiled and patted her on the head. "I'm sure she does. May I have my sheet back, please?"

* * *

Their unit wasn't the only one of its kind; there were, of course, more than forty some-odd renegades and Exiles scattered across the Universe. Theirs was, however, supposedly the best, if that was the proper word. Prydonian renegades were infamous for their sheer devotion to whatever cause they'd chosen, and that, according to the High Council, made them fantastic assets.

Looking around their makeshift camp, Culsu couldn't help but wonder how out of touch the High Council actually _was_.

There was a pair of sisters from one of the lower Houses that Culsu had never really bothered to remember, huddled miserably just outside the warmth of the fire because they were too afraid of the former Shada inmates to come anywhere near them. They weren't alone; almost half the unit was terrified of them. The difference was that the others at least managed to build fires of their own, however small and prone to dying at the slightest breeze they might be. Culsu thought uncharitably that it was the only useful thing that half had managed to do since arriving here; it was hardly _their_ fault, after all. Hopefully those ones would at least have the wits not to get involved with anything; the harsher crowd would mock them from here to Gallifrey and back again, but at least they might survive that way, if they were lucky.

Shada was sitting by herself at the edge of the cliff face, kicking at the air. She didn't have a fire or even a blanket, but she didn't seem to be affected by the cold at all. The wind was whipping at her old-fashioned robes and she was smiling with what Culsu thought might have even been honest joy. She figured if she'd spent thousands of years in a tiny cabinet she might have been fond of anything that wasn't temperature-controlled, sterilised air, but as it was she was shivering and bundled under as many blankets as Granny could supply, knees tucked under her chin.

Their so-called "battlefield commander" refused to allow anyone to return to their TT Capsules, saying something about how they needed to be ready and alert for anything that might happen.

(Shada had laughed and said something that Culsu couldn't decipher but probably meant "that's bullshit". They were only out there shivering because the Maser found it amusing.)

"Trade you."

Culsu looked up at Patroklos as he nudged her to the side so he could squeeze onto the edge of her rock. She immediately regretted moving, as it had momentarily shifted the mound of blankets and let a creeping tendril of wind through.

"For _what?"_ she asked, nudging her tin of ration pellets with one frozen foot. "And what are you _wearing?"_

Patroklos pulled his extremely fluffy hat more firmly over his ears with a superior huff. "_Some_ of us were loyal and respectable members of House Oakdown after the timeline splinter," he said in an eerily good impression of the Cardinal's haughtiest demeanor. "And get biothermal mittens and undershifts as a result."

"You mean the Kithriarch is your biodonor and pampers you."

Patroklos rolled his eyes. "Do you want my ration gel or not?"

"Does it taste better than the pellets?"

"No."

Culsu considered it for a moment, then reluctantly wormed one arm out of the pile of blankets and grabbed the tube of very predictably Prydon-orange gel.

Patroklos was just making a face at her tin of pellets when even _more_ wind started swirling around them (Culsu whined slightly and pulled the blankets closer) and there was a deafening, shrieking groan as Time shifted around one of the most reluctant materialisations Culsu had ever seen, the blue form of the outer plasmic shell phasing back out so many times she wasn't sure it would stay.

Culsu growled.

There was a long pause as they waited for something to happen and were disappointed; Patroklos was the first one to grow bored with staring at the unexpected police box, shrug, and go back to choking down Culsu's freezing-cold ration pellets. There was a muffled explosion from somewhere inside the capsule, silence again, an even longer pause.

The doors burst open in a cloud of smoke as the Rani stalked out, almost tripping over the huddled sisters. She growled under her breath—Culsu caught something about a lab and the Council and a great many mentions of inferior forms of life—before tossing her head regally and walking off into the desert.

Shada had at some point wandered back over, either to see what what going on having gotten tired of hypothermia. She glanced over at Culsu, smirking with one eyebrow raised. "Reckon she knows the 'ole complex is the other d'rection?"

"Oh, probably not." The Doctor hadn't regenerated since Culsu had seen him. Pity. She'd thought for a moment he had; his hair was much less… well, it was much _less._ "Still, I'm sure she'll figure it out eventually, once she's had time to… ah. Cool down." He coughed awkwardly, waving an ineffectual hand at the smoke pouring out of his console room.

"Doctor?" a deeply concerned voice called from inside. "Is this _supposed_ to be on fire?"

The Doctor yelped and jumped back into his ship. There was a loud banging and a shower of sparks before he leapt out again, coattails smoking slightly and trailing a young human man in a leather jacket and an extremely battered-looking Guard-Commander Maxil.

Culsu felt a good deal of her hatred for the Doctor fade. Maxil made a frequent hobby of slipping snide xenophobic comments into loud conversations and had the uncanny ability to do so when she was close enough to hear him. If his current state had been the Doctor's doing she might even reconsider throwing her ration gel at Shada and saying he'd done it.

* * *

"Really, it would be my pleasure."

"It's fine, sir."

Patroklos shifted uncomfortably, poking at Culsu's mind in an irritated plea for backup. She gave a mental shrug and continued attempting to squeeze the last bits of ration gel out of their tube. Patroklos glared. In the background, the Master and the Doctor were _still_ bickering—it had been almost a microspan since the latter's arrival, now, and they showed no signs of letting up. The Doctor was angrily gesturing about something to do with flowers. Culsu wondered briefly if the Master had forgotten an anniversary, then remembered she didn't care, and went back to watching her Cousin attempt to play nice with the Guard-Commander.

"Just, er… doing my duty to my House," he finished awkwardly. "It's rough everywhere, right, Commander? Nice to uh… have a loyal Time Lord on the front."

Maxil nodded agreeably, which was faintly disturbing. "You're a credit to your House," he said with an approving pat on the back. Patroklos jabbed Culsu's mind again in horror. She ignored him. "Still, it's a shame you've ended up here. Plenty of room for such a willing recruit elsewhere on the fronts, in less… questionable company." Ah. _There_ was the look of disgust. Culsu almost hadn't recognised him without it.

Shada hummed happily from where she was stretched out next to the fire, inspecting her nails. Culsu thinned her shields just enough to sense the timeline fold that was being almost casually tucked over Maxil's biodata. She sighed and kicked Shada hard in the ribs. The fold dissolved without doing any damage, and Shada cursed at her in her usual friendly manner.

"Oakdown!" Maxil barked, apparently not realising that _piss on Rassilon's grave_ was Shada for _Oh, you._ "I understand that your sort aren't quite the pinnacle of proper conduct, but you aren't five spans old. You really should be above _roughhousing_." He looked back at Patroklos. "I suppose I ought to be holding her to a lower standard? Considering her… proclivities?"

Culsu growled. "You know what, go ahead and erase him."

"Nah," said Shada offhandedly. "The moment's gone. Ya ruined i', Clouts."

"Damn."

"THE MATTER COMPRESSOR WAS _NOT_ A _PHALLIC SYMBOL!_" shouted the Master.

On a list of ways to achieve instant silence, that was a pretty good one. Even Maxil, for once in his life, had shut up.

There were a great many long, incredibly strained moments of silence. Gradually they became aware of the faint sound of crunching footsteps as the Rani stalked back through the circle, supremely dignified and headed towards the actual complex.

"Welcome back," Shada called after her without looking up from her fingernails.

The Rani hissed something incomprehensible at her. Shada grinned. They'd get along wonderfully, Culsu thought.

* * *

They did. The Rani had a makeshift laboratory set up in the middle of the desert, which wasn't exactly a simple feat. Shada had done… something… to maintain some semblance of a cleanroom environment for her. There was a nearly-invisible barrier around the table that ate everything which wasn't authorised to bypass it, from wind and sand to renegades who'd ventured too close to the bubble. Kajan had been unfortunate enough to have the edge of his robes blown into it, and Shada had nearly choked on her laughter. The Rani had been in the middle of an experiment, and hadn't actually noticed.

Culsu had to admit that, horrific renegade-eating force-field aside, the cleanroom was a brilliant invention. She thought she'd almost reverse-engineered how it worked; she was hopeful she'd be able to repurpose it to isolate events from the Web of Time. That way, rather than wasting units on sitting around defending Fixed Points, they could go on offense.

She wasn't an idiot—she knew the war wouldn't end well for Gallifrey. Some of the other renegades were calling it "the Last Great Time War" already. But she was trying to maintain a positive outlook. It might be a Pyhrric victory, but it could still be a _victory_. She refused to let it be anything less.

"Wha're ya workin' on, Clouts?"

She didn't get a chance to answer before Shada had looked over her shoulder to see for herself.

"Oh, tha' is _bonny_," Shada murmured. "It won't _work_, mind ya, not with those specs, but it's got potential." At Culsu's inquisitive glance, she waved down at the blueprints Culsu was sketching out onto her tablet (she'd not uplinked it to the Matrix yet, didn't want to until she was sure it would actually work). "Ya need a power source, Clouts. This isn't anythin' so small as a worldline fold."

Culsu wasn't sure she would call folding worldlines _small_, especially not considering the outcome it had on the war effort; Culsu knew there were no less than six versions of the Doctor alone fighting in this worldline right now. When Shada wasn't using her abilities like a demat gun against anyone who'd managed to annoy her, she was a fantastic strategist and warrior.

A week ago a squadron of Dalek battleships had attempted to destroy the Fixed Point. They were erased within nanospans, and so was, Shada had informed the Master brightly, an entire model of Dalek casing. No one was particularly fond of the Striders, and ecstatic they didn't have to deal with them anymore.

"What kind of power source, though?" Culsu asked. "We can't exactly create Eyes of Harmony for every Fixed Point, it has to be feasible."

Shada shrugged. "Ya could use TARDISes. SIDRATs, in a pinch, but it wouldn't work so fine." Culsu was the only person around whom she called them TARDISes. It was actually sort of sweet, in the manner of an older Cousin you wanted desperately to stab through both hearts even while you adored them.

It took a nanospan for what she'd actually suggested to sink in. "_What?_" Culsu said. "No! You can't force a TT Capsule to do something like that!"

"Why not?"

"It's _torture!_" she hissed, trying to keep her voice down. Her outburst had attracted attention, and the last thing she needed was for the Master to know about this. She had just begun the over-long process of deleting the files when the worldline screamedlike a dying thing.

Shada wore a grin the size of Olyesti, eyes bright with an emotion Culsu couldn't read and didn't think she wanted to be able to. "The Could 'Ave Been King," she whispered, near reverently. "Come on, let's 'ave a _real_ fight!"

A 'real fight' was the last thing Culsu wanted to have.

"Like tha' matters out 'ere," said Shada.

"Let go of my hand." "I'm not touchin' ya."

She really needs to work on her tendency to project, didn't she?

There's a hiss traveling not _on _but _behind_ the still air, the non-sound of non-things which never will not exist, timeless, Axis-fissure creatures and the impression she got of them is that they are horribly ugly. There was no mouth from which the hiss will one day issue, no features at all—

_on ya just shut_

—up in the air there are midway-forms, and they hovered without apparent purpose or need—

_to be able to act'ly _focus_, and ya wassocks aren't makin' it easier to_

—"do the High Council honestly think we've got any chance?" someone whispers. Culsu didn't know vis name.

Shada was projecting her orders in an attempt to make them heard. Culsu doubts it will make a difference either way, most of these people have no practice with anything at all like this, they're terrified, _she's _terrified, truly and honestly. She wondered if this isn't too different from how people feel when she projects the drums.

When one of the Neverweres extends itself towards her, more smoke than body, when it had been so close she can feel its nature, she throws away that comparison. The simple _idea_ of it rebelled against every sense she had, her chronal lobe clouding over like vertigo, her neuromatrix lit as if it was on fire, so bright she couldn't feel anything except pain that is nearly too sharp to _be _pain.

Two things happened at once, or everything did and is and will and has and shall and never can.

The first is that Patroklos runs at the non-thing. The third and twenty-sixth and seven-thousand-ninety-fourth is that Time ceases to exist, for just the shortest moment, as much as moments can be attributed to a lack of Time. It might be an infinity for all Culsu knows, but she experiences it in less than an eye-blink, so for her it's a moment.

The second was that the Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres were gone when Time resumed.

"They'll be back," said Shada happily, covered in something best described as 'not'; the bloodbath of things without proper existence.

Patroklos was gone as well, was never there at all. Culsu was too numb to feel hopelessness.

* * *

If Culsu had a tendency to project, it was nothing compared to the few remnants of the tenderfoot crew—as Shada called them—who were still alive. There were very, very few of them, but their hysteria pounded through her temples like there were a thousand.

"This isn't happening," one of the scrawny little ones rasped, curled into himself and rocking slightly near Culsu's feet. "This isn't happening, this isn't _happening…_" One of the Shada crowd kicked viciously at him, and he screamed, but the muttering stopped.

"We're going to die," whispered one of the others.

"Don't say that," a wild-eyed naturalist snapped.

"_We're going to die."_

"'Course we're not," Shada said easily, leaning against the wall and tossing a battered staser into the air, twirling it cheerfully and catching it in one hand. Culsu hoped very much that the safety was on, but doubted it. Still, her confidence and casualness seemed to reassure the group.

She looked over at Culsu and grinned cruelly. "We'll never 'ave existed in the first place."

Four of the remaining five tenderfoots broke down into hysterics, the sole exception one of the pair of inseparable sisters Culsu had only ever peripherally noticed, who was staring blankly at a wall. There was no longer—would never be, had never been, isn't?—a pair. Culsu just barely resisted the urge to throw a rock at Shada's head.

"What's going on, what's wrong?" The Doctor stumbled into the room looking deeply concerned, with one arm half-into the sleeve of one of his interminable supply of velvet jackets. His other one was covered in Neverwere juice, which he was less enthusiastic about than Shada. "Are they being attacked?"

"They will be soon!" Shada singsonged. The young naturalist started sobbing.

"It's hopeless," said one of the Shada crew, whose name Culsu had never caught. "We can't kill them, just slow them down."

"Well, of course we can't kill them," said Ruath. "You can't kill something that doesn't exist."

Shada gave a low, rough chuckle.

"Best find a way soon," she grinned, and _then_ Culsu felt the beginnings of tears that will or are or have ripped reality apart. "They're back."

This time it's the broken, silent sister who vanished first, blood splattering the walls before she's even touched, gone without a scream and something in Culsu knew the girl could have moved but she doesn't and she's gone and the Shada crowd fared no better, here and then never there at all or else somewhere they've never been before she blinks and realised she was staring at nothing.

Ruath lifted her de-mat gun, fires, and the blast ripples through one of the incorporeal beings. It did nothing but anger the non-thing, not even offering up the strange non-liquid that a staser shot will.

The hiss shifts through semitones, more of a buzzing now, or perhaps it always had been; Culsu doesn't know anymore. Ruath had attracted the Neverwere's attention and she's gone or hadn't been or— there aren't _tenses_ for this, there should be tenses for everything, and there are even tenses for that-which-once-was-but-now-never-has-been but Culsu knows just as everyone else here (the exception being the Doctor's human, Fritz, or whatever his name was, she'd not been paying attention) that that wasn't what is happening here, they none of them knew what is happening here, it's not quite like anything outside of _Bones of the Dead_ and even that was a stretch, they couldn't fight something that doesn't _exist…_

It wasn't stopping Shada from trying. Culsu can feel her straining, growling under her breath as she struggled to keep her grip on the worldline, to force the Neverweres out of it but there's nothing to force out, no strands of biodata to hold onto, to fold over, and just as surely as she could feel Shada failing she can sense the creatures became aware of the disturbance, turning to its source.

"'_Ey! Sod off!"_

Culsu screwed her eyes as far shut as she could manage without accidentally running into a Neverwere—it was easier not to collapse from sheer confusion if she can't _see_ them, and for once her shields were locked down—and tightened her grip on Shada's collar, hauling her down the corridor and tries not to kill them both on the stairs. "I'm saving your life!" she yelped as Shada swipes petulantly at her head.

"I can 'andle myself, thanks!"

Culsu thought (and thank Rassilon, she could almost manage tenses down here, the attack was focused on the top of the cliff) with something between fear and admiration that if she let her, Shada would probably wrestle the Neverweres before she would concede defeat.

_She'd probably win._

"And don't ya forget it. Now let me at the fuckin' _bastards_."

Granny's doors opened while Culsu was still running towards them and she made a note to talk to her about that; she appreciated the gesture but launched herself on the door locks the moment she managed to drag Shada inside. _If a Neverwere had managed to get inside you…!_

She could feel Granny's shiver at the idea, but her offense to the very suggestion that she wouldn't have been able to _sense_ such a thing about to happen overruled it.

_Fine,_ Culsu conceded. _But be more careful._ She wasn't certain if Granny ever really listened to her, but she worried about the timeship all the same.

"They'll get in 'ere, ya know." Shada was not known for her patience, and less so when she was being denied an unwinnable fight. "Soon as they're done moppin' up the crowd up there, they'll get in. I don't care 'ow talented ya are, we're _fast_, and ya can't undo that in time."

"I'm not trying to. Hold this." Culsu shoved an access panel into her arms. "And be quiet. I need to concentrate."

"Concentrate on _what?_"

Culsu ignored her, climbing underneath the console. She frowned at the wiring; she _knew_ Granny's wiring and at least half of this wasn't part of it, and wasn't necessary for the retrofits either. Which meant that they must have been trackers for the High Council. She tore them out with a certain degree of relish.

"There's a screwdriver in the cabinet," she told Shada. Something was thrust into her hands. "This isn't my screwdriver."

"A sonic isn't gonna do anythin' for ya, Clouts."

She peered at the tool she'd been handed, a simple metal tube with a single button. "Do I want to know what this does?" "What ya need it to do," Shada replied.

Focusing _very_ hard on a short, controlled slice of a single wire, Culsu pushed the button. The device's telepathic receivers worked perfectly, to her decided relief; it only made sense, after all, but she wouldn't have put it past Shada to have handed her something with isomorphic controls and malicious security measures. She'd seen the equations for the deteriorating temporal loops used on some CIA tech at the Academy, and knew that renegades were fond of the same protocols for a similar reason. For that matter, it might have been a grenade. Shada had a very strange sense of humour.

Culsu had never done this before, never had a chance to run small-scale tests on the concept; she wasn't even certain she'd correctly reverse-engineered the original formula. Given that they were being slaughtered by nightmare abominations that didn't technically exist, hoping for the best would have to do. She trusted her calculations; this _would_ work.

Shada's terrifying Renegade-devouring force field seemed complicated, at first; but it was really just a very simple piece of trans-temporal spatial engineering, disrupting the Web of Time and creating a temporary fissure between the walls of the universe and the Vortex. In its rawest form the field could power itself, drawing temporal energy from the dust, breeze, insects and occasional people it devoured. But changing a few variables, tightening and streamlining the equation, _carry the point seven, divide by zero_ and it could be repurposed. As it was the field was failing because no barrier in the universe could hold back foes that were mathematically impossible but if you could reverse the polarity of the power flow...

Shada sighed. Culsu managed not to shriek upon realising the renegade had managed to worm her way under the console next to her without her noticing.

"It's not going to work," Shada informed her, sounding disturbingly unconcerned.

"Yes," Culsu growled, "It _is._ I'm altering the forcefield parameters to only accept the passage of anything it can verify as temporally and physically genuine. I'm erecting one over Granny, the central complex and the Fixed Point." Shada made a disgusted noise and thought something extremely loud and unflattering about the wet-behind-the-ears farm boy whose existence was apparently an unalterable fact in this galaxy. Culsu ignored her, as per usual. "We can work out what to do after that."

"Yeah, dead ace solution. Save it won't act'ly _work_."

Culsu continued to ignore her. "It'll hurt," she said miserably, pressing her hand against the underside of Granny's console and feeling her warm acceptance thrum along the link. "But we shouldn't need the forcefields for more than a few millispans. She can hold it that long."

"She won't get a chance." Shada was getting irritated now, the way she had when Culsu had been struggling to understand the nuances of timefolds. "The forcefield'll work, sure, but it can't keep out the Neverweres. Ya know as good as I, they're not anythin' so simple as Divergents; the field'll take a pastin' and then it'll fall and everythin' will 'ave been for naught. 'Sides," she added, "they're already _in_ the thing."

Granny whirred in distress as Culsu closed her eyes, curling her arms around her stomach and wishing she could at least pretend Shada was wrong. "We have to at least _try_," she said. "We can't fight them. You can't fight things that don't exist." Her blood ran cold. "You can't fight things that don't exist," she repeated. "You can't fight things that don't exist!"

"Snap out o' it," Shada growled in disgust. "We can damn well try."

"We can _make_ them exist," Culsu said, and hoped her voice wasn't as manic as it sounded. "We can force the Web to redefine the parameters of reality."

Shada stared at her for several long heartsbeats as she launched into action, with an expression that was half bewilderment and half resignation at losing yet another Oakdown to the madness of the Schism.

"So yer plan," she said slowly, "is to rip the fabric of reality to shreds, tear the Vortex open, unravel the Web of Time an' burn it in the hearts of a billion dyin' suns." She cocked her head to consider it as Culsu mumbled a protest around her borrowed screwdriver. "I like it!"

Culsu shook her head briefly, distracted as she fumbled over a dozen different connections and fought to wrestle the plating away from Granny's core. "We can contain the paradox."

Shada laughed sharply, cruelly. "There's no containin' _tha'_ kind of paradox, Clouts. Take a thing tha' doesn't exist and tell reality it does? Nothin' short on the Eye on Harmony…"

"Or the Chronal element."

The slow grin that spread across Shada's face was anything but reassuring. "The _heart_? Ya want to _cannibalise_ yer beloved timeship?" Shada positively cackled, amusement rolling off her in unshielded waves as Culsu tried to stop herself from shaking at the realisation of what she could do. What she would _have_ to.

"I don't have a _choice_! If I disable the dimensional stabilisers, the outer plasmic shell will be compromised," she continued, more calmly, "and the phase oscillators won't be able to contain the Chronal element. Use the fluid links to hijack the protoplasmic matrices and we'll have a- a paradox machine, in essence. It would be better if we could use the Eye, the paradox would have a stronger foundation anchored in the centre of the Web, but we haven't got the time—or the recall circuit, for that matter—and the _last_ thing we need is for the High Council to start _standardising_ this."

She was talking to distract herself, refusing to stop and think about what she was doing as she rearranged circuitry and forced connections that were never meant to exist. Part of her wanted to wrap Granny's presence around her mind like a blanket, to soak up as much of it as she could before there was nothing left, but she couldn't bear it in the face of the betrayal she was planning. She forced up what shielding she could and tried to ignore her timeship's concern as it pulsed gently at her temples.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

A pulse of warmth in the back of her mind was Granny's reply. Her telepathic conduits had been rewired and her expression was fragmented, forming more akin to the sentience of ȹɛ̝_gre:a_ than anything, but Culsu could still sense the sudden spike of alarm as she reached to lock in the settings.

"I'm _sorry,"_ she moaned, clinging to the dematerialisation lever—which no longer worked, was no longer connected to anything—and willing Granny to feel how little she wanted to do this. "I'm so sorry. I don't _want_ to."

Granny's response was a gentle wash of love, and a quiet pinging from under the console. Culsu managed to collapse awkwardly next to the open section, and dug through the mess of wires until she found the inconspicuous little bit of circuitry, pulsing innocently near Granny's core. If someone had stabbed her through both hearts it would have hurt less.

Granny understood _exactly_ what was going to happen to her.

The banshee circuit was an absolute end-of-all-hope last resort, the result of some Time Lord in history who'd had a conscience; or maybe just pragmatism, a reluctance to let Gallifreyan _technology_ be misused, even if that 'technology' was sentient, felt hope and pain and fear, even if it was kinder and gentler than its pilot could ever be, even if it was a friend. The almost innocent-looking addition was Granny's link to her own life force. It was her survival instinct, and her ability to override it. It gave her the ability to, if there was no other way, end her life. And she wanted Culsu to remove it. Because if this worked, the paradox could never be released. Granny would have to contain it forever, to the end of time and beyond, and she didn't trust herself not to use a way out, if she had one.

She couldn't do it. Granny was her friend, her bonded partner, a _part _of her even more than Lotivver was and she was lobotomising her with a _laser screwdriver_. But Granny nudged her mind again, infinitely sad and just as determined, and just for a moment the console room flickered around them, a brief flash of a home she'd never thought she'd see again.

_I'm sorry,_ Culsu told her again, shields dissolving into misery. She yanked the banshee circuit out, squeezed her eyes shut, and slammed the paradox containment settings home before she could let herself think about what she was doing, because she couldn't do it she _couldn't_ but it was already done, and Granny _screamed._

Culsu screamed too, and she wasn't sure if it was grief or that one of the Neverweres had forced its way through the Real World Interface and into what had been the console room. It was decayed, a halfway thing coated in its own black almost-blood. Shada shot it with her staser and it fell dead.

"Ugh, now it's _boring_," she complained. "They're too easy to kill!"

"Then _kill them_," Culsu snapped, choking.

"Fine." Shada sighed, put-upon, and dropped her staser.

"What did you do that for?"

"Ya said kill them, not _'ow_."

"They exist now, just… just fold the damn worldline over them!"

"Soon as I get to punch one. Oh, or break one on their necks!"

The world felt thick, like moving through syrup, and Culsu was aware of _everything_, to the extent that she couldn't focus on anything. She stumbled out of the RWI, the sound of a battle in the background. There weren't many of their band left, but the ones who were were nearly entirely from the Shada run. They could handle the amount of enemies. She hoped.

After less than a microspan, she felt a twist in the worldline; Shada had finished off her Neverwere, and was beginning to fold time over the rest of them. Culsu latched onto the fissure Shada had created, helping to widen it.

The fold wasn't particularly refined; Shada could fold worldlines over _atoms_ if she wanted to—or, once, Kajan's ration gel—but that wasn't what they needed now. A blanket fold to destroy anything outside of the city that wasn't of Gallifreyan origin would work to do what they needed—

_Wait._ Something in Culsu woke up, shaken out of the pain reverberating through her skull. _Stop!_

_If we stop now there won't be a _universe_, never mind some ephemeral, _Shada argued, pulling the mass of timelines she'd collected through the fissure and forcing it closed. Culsu wasn't sure if Shada experienced the phenomenon in the same way, with her Oldblood neurostructure, and had never thought to ask. For her, she could feel every life in the worldline like threads in a tapestry as it folded over and smothered them out of existence. The Neverweres chafed and sliced at her senses, steel wool rather than thread, and when they suddenly disappeared it was a relief, a sudden cessation of pain. There was only one other non-Gallifreyan lifeline to be tangled up in the fold. It snagged valiantly, fought for the briefest possible moment, but Fitz Kreiner's pale silk thread frayed and shredded just as gently as the Neverweres and was swept away almost as an afterthought.

_You could have stopped that,_ Culsu thought. There was no real heat behind it. She didn't have the strength.

She felt Shada flick liquified Neverwere out of her short-cropped hair. _Croaker can get a new pet if 'e wants._ There was really nothing Culsu could say to that.

Culsu was the last to stumble back into the central complex. There were barely six of them left; the Master had disappeared months ago. It was just her, Shada, the Doctor and three Shada inmates. Kajan was screaming intermittently as the Doctor attempted to keep him from bleeding out from the stumps where his legs had until recently been. He'd regenerated at least half a dozen times since Culsu had met him. Ostensibly, they were all accidents; the tally marks Shada carved into the wall every time they happened were probably just coincidences. Either way, he wasn't regenerating and it didn't look as if he was going to. Shada looked vaguely disappointed when the Doctor managed to at least halt some of the bleeding and enlisted the other two Shada thugs to carry Kajan into his… his _TARDIS_, Culsu supposed.

"He should survive the trip back." The Doctor's words were hopeful, but his voice was dead.

Shada twirled her retrieved staser casually in her hand. "I'll check on him when we land," she said innocently.

Culsu expected the Doctor to say something—righteous indignation or disappointment, at least. But he didn't even seem to hear her.

Shada quirked an eyebrow. "Want me to take ya for a ride, Clouts? Can't run back to Gallifrey like good little soldiers if you're stuck 'ere without a ship."

"Back to Gallifrey…?"

"We've been recalled." The Doctor looked up at her, eyes dark, but with something like pity in them. "The High Council's summoned all the renegade forces back to Gallifrey." Culsu got the distinct impression he was trying very hard not to think the phrase _last stand._

Shada grinned viciously, a spark of insanity in her eyes. "Yer war just got interestin', Clouts," she said in a voice that almost sang. "Arcadia's fallen."

* * *

**_ȹɛ̝gre:a_ [pih-grey-uh]**

1. a nonsentient creature within a telepathic gestalt; something which is living but not a person; an animal.

2. _archaic_ a term used to describe any non-Gallifreyan telepathic being or species, regardless of sentience (while non-telepathic species were given a designation approximating vegetation). under Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar, this usage was designated perjorative, and began to be phased out of academic use.


End file.
